Cult Classics: Cobra

June 30th, 2008

For some reason I’ve always found myself attracted to movies that are considered “cult classics” - movies with a small but passionate audience. These are usually movies that are too violent or use too much clever/edgy comedy for your average Midwestern moron to understand. As a result almost all of these movies have been considered commercial failures. Evil Dead, The Big Lebowski, Office Space, Clerks, and Roadhouse are examples of really good cult movies that never got a chance in theaters.

As I sat around my house on Sunday evening nursing a wicked hangover I decided to see if Netflix could help me through the day. A fair amount of searching later and there it was: 1986’s Cobra starring Sylvester Stallone. It had all the necessary elements - it was hyperviolent, had a ridiculous tag line (”Crime is a disease. Meet the cure.”), and it starred freaking Rambo! I was in.

Cobra did not disappoint. Here’s a couple reasons to add it to your DVD shelf:

The Plot makes exactly zero sense. The cops are chasing someone whom the media dubs “The Nightslasher” who in reality is actually some sort of axe wielding army of psychopaths. Now even if there wasn’t DNA testing available in 1986 I would think when a hacked up body turns up in a car that has been chopped in half with axes they might suspect the criminal is one than one dude right? Apparently not.

Marion Cobretti is a shoot first ask questions later cop. During the opening scene a hostage standoff is taking place at a grocery store. I guess the group of cops stationed outside can’t figure out what to do so they have to “call in the cobra”. When Cobra arrives he enters the building and kills the criminal by throwing a knife into his chest and then shooting him 5 times. In fact in the entire movie I don’t think he actually arrests anyone. He kills a lot of people but arrests no one. He may not have even been issued a set of handcuffs.

The Violence is ever present. Seriously I think for every action scene there is about 10 lines of dialogue. There may only be about 2 pages of actual written dialogue in this entire movie. The rest consists of action shots and montages with 80’s house music dubbed in.

Brigitte Nielson before she hit the wall. She was very very attractive in the 80’s. Now she spends time with Flava Flav in reality TV land. Time is one cruel bitch.

The Ending stays inline with the rest of the movie and also makes no sense. Cobra has just spent about 18 minutes shooting guys on motorcycles with a machine gun when he comes face to face with the main bad guy (possibly the actual Night Slasher, again there is very little dialogue). The bad guy says “You won’t shoot me. You’re the law. The law is civilized.” Did this moron not just see Cobra shoot like 38 guys dead? You think one more is going to effect him that much? Ridiculous. What do you think happens? Uh yeah Cobra kills him.

I think this movie was written by a group of guys sitting around smoking weed and trying to find another vehicle in which Stallone kills about 200 people. Mission accomplished.

I give it 2 out of 5 Coke Boogers.