With its "Terminator"-inspired poster art, Lt. Marion "Cobra" Cobretti (Sylvester Stallone, also the film's screenwriter, and who used material sourced from the novel "Fair Game" by Paula Gosling for his script) is another one of the many over-the-top "rogue cop" characters that were so prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s in the wake of films like "Bullitt" (1968) and the legendary film that really launched the genre, "Dirty Harry" (1971).
But by 1986, when the ridiculously over-the-top "Cobra" was released, the genre was growing depressingly stale, and "Cobra," Stallone's vanity project that he had made using ideas that were rejected by producers on "Beverly Hills Cop" (1984) - supposedly for being prohibitively expensive for the production, and for which he was originally slated to star in - was so over-the-top that the whole thing felt like a parody. Stallone himself seems like a caricature here, with his mirror shades, tight blue jeans, and custom-made vehicles and firearms (including a laser-mounted submachine gun). (The "rogue cop" genre itself would get injected with some new energy the following year in 1987 with "Lethal Weapon.")
Cobretti is the stereotypical lone-wolf policeman who constantly defies his superiors and firmly established department regulations to do things his own way. Cobretti and his sweets- and junk food-loving partner Gonzalez (the late Reni Santoni) are the only detectives on the Los Angeles Police Department's "Zombie Squad," because they only take on the cases that "nobody else wants." This 1986 Reagan-era Los Angeles is depicted as a violent-crime-ridden cesspool where Stallone's character fits right in, and his law-bending vigilante tactics are for some reason tolerated by his superiors because they get results (however minimal they may be; more on this in a bit).
To get whatever plot there is rolling, L. A. is in the grips of a violent crime wave, and Cobretti is the only man for the job of keeping these streets safe. 16 people have been gruesomely murdered by an axe-wielding psycho called the "Night Slasher" (an imposing Brian Thompson, whose character's name is an obvious reference to the real-life serial killer Richard Ramirez, a.k.a., the "Night Stalker," whose murder and crime spree had terrorized the city just one year earlier), who is actually the leader of an army of neo-fascist social Darwinist radicals who represent the "New Order": they have a murderous disregard for the laws of modern-day society and want to remake it in such a way that only the strong will survive by first eliminating the weak. (Charles Darwin, eat your heart out.)
Cobretti gets involved in the case when he blows away one of the neo-fascists while he's holding up a supermarket during the film's opening action sequence, and later model Ingrid Knudsen (Stallone's then-real-life wife Brigitte Nielson, whom he'd met on "Rocky IV" one year earlier) witnesses one of the "Night Slasher's" killings, and he then makes it his mission to eliminate her personally since she's the only person who can positively identify him and thus poses the greatest threat to his "new order" vision. She's then placed in protective custody with Cobretti and Gonzalez.
As you can see, "Cobra" is not a very bright movie, or even a very good one, and it repeatedly faced many cuts for its extreme violence in order to avoid an 'X" rating. The characters are glaringly thin. The romantic tension that predictably builds up between Cobretti and Ingrid is shockingly dull, considering the fact that Stallone and Nielsen were married in real life at the time. But, the late George P. Cosmatos, who directed this utterly preposterous star vehicle (and who also directed Stallone in the previous year's "Rambo: First Blood Part II") has a strong penchant for deftly staged action choreography, including several car chases, shoot-outs, and the final showdown between Cobretti and the "Night Slasher" in a foundry.
Speaking of the "Night Slasher," Brian Thompson proves to be a worthy adversary to Stallone's Cobra, and is, honestly, the most interesting character in the whole movie, by far. We don't know much about the "Night Slasher" or his true motives, other than he's "evil" (according to what Thompson was told by Stallone himself about the character) and only wants to wipe out society's "weak" and anyone who would oppose him and his cult. But Thompson makes him scary and gives the "Night Slasher" an intimidating physical presence with only a minimum of dialogue and despite only being featured in a few scenes (and having one of the coolest-looking knives ever in an action movie). In short, he's the best thing about the movie, even if he was still sold short by the film's star, who's featured in just about every scene and spouts off one corny one-liner after another.
Lastly, when discussing the "Night Slasher" and his well-armed neo-fascist cult, back then, such bizarre antagonists were merely over-the-top cartoon characters who only existed on the fringes of society and in post-apocalyptic action yarns (i.e., the "Mad Max" trilogy). But in today's times, and with the threat posed by such "fringe" individuals who have no qualms whatsoever about acting on their radical beliefs a very real thing to a democratic society, the passage of time has given "Cobra" a frightening prescience that it was never meant to have. While this may seem to elevate "Cobra" in some degree or fashion, the fact remains that it hasn't aged well and is a stale product of its time.
Sylvester Stallone would go on to make many better movies after "Cobra," but it also represents a film from a time when he'd let his over-sized ego overshadow his art.
5/10
(P. S.: As someone who majored in criminal justice in college and who loves action movies like "Dirty Harry," I can honestly say this movie is wholly unrealistic in terms of its portrayal of police work - simply because it doesn't seem like its police detective protagonists are very intelligent and don't do much in the way of actually investigating crimes. More so, a rule-breaking cop like Cobretti would be unemployable on any police force, even a so-called "Zombie Squad" - for the simple reason that he wouldn't be able to make cases, either because suspects would wind up dead, or because said suspects could justifiably level excessive force or police brutality complaints against the LAPD that would make Cobretti fully accountable for his actions and most likely be fired, if not put in prison. To make it worse, it's even implied that Cobretti's bosses give him the okay to use his unique brand of quasi-fascist vigilante tactics in his pursuit of the "Night Slasher." Think about his line: "This is where the law stops, and I start." Even a "rogue cop" like Clint Eastwood's Inspector "Dirty Harry" Callahan would ultimately realize the importance of working within the legal system that he was sworn to uphold, protect, and enforce - even if he did not always personally agree with the decisions being made by the courts and even if it also made it more difficult for him to do his job. That's the price we pay for living in a democracy.)
But by 1986, when the ridiculously over-the-top "Cobra" was released, the genre was growing depressingly stale, and "Cobra," Stallone's vanity project that he had made using ideas that were rejected by producers on "Beverly Hills Cop" (1984) - supposedly for being prohibitively expensive for the production, and for which he was originally slated to star in - was so over-the-top that the whole thing felt like a parody. Stallone himself seems like a caricature here, with his mirror shades, tight blue jeans, and custom-made vehicles and firearms (including a laser-mounted submachine gun). (The "rogue cop" genre itself would get injected with some new energy the following year in 1987 with "Lethal Weapon.")
Cobretti is the stereotypical lone-wolf policeman who constantly defies his superiors and firmly established department regulations to do things his own way. Cobretti and his sweets- and junk food-loving partner Gonzalez (the late Reni Santoni) are the only detectives on the Los Angeles Police Department's "Zombie Squad," because they only take on the cases that "nobody else wants." This 1986 Reagan-era Los Angeles is depicted as a violent-crime-ridden cesspool where Stallone's character fits right in, and his law-bending vigilante tactics are for some reason tolerated by his superiors because they get results (however minimal they may be; more on this in a bit).
To get whatever plot there is rolling, L. A. is in the grips of a violent crime wave, and Cobretti is the only man for the job of keeping these streets safe. 16 people have been gruesomely murdered by an axe-wielding psycho called the "Night Slasher" (an imposing Brian Thompson, whose character's name is an obvious reference to the real-life serial killer Richard Ramirez, a.k.a., the "Night Stalker," whose murder and crime spree had terrorized the city just one year earlier), who is actually the leader of an army of neo-fascist social Darwinist radicals who represent the "New Order": they have a murderous disregard for the laws of modern-day society and want to remake it in such a way that only the strong will survive by first eliminating the weak. (Charles Darwin, eat your heart out.)
Cobretti gets involved in the case when he blows away one of the neo-fascists while he's holding up a supermarket during the film's opening action sequence, and later model Ingrid Knudsen (Stallone's then-real-life wife Brigitte Nielson, whom he'd met on "Rocky IV" one year earlier) witnesses one of the "Night Slasher's" killings, and he then makes it his mission to eliminate her personally since she's the only person who can positively identify him and thus poses the greatest threat to his "new order" vision. She's then placed in protective custody with Cobretti and Gonzalez.
As you can see, "Cobra" is not a very bright movie, or even a very good one, and it repeatedly faced many cuts for its extreme violence in order to avoid an 'X" rating. The characters are glaringly thin. The romantic tension that predictably builds up between Cobretti and Ingrid is shockingly dull, considering the fact that Stallone and Nielsen were married in real life at the time. But, the late George P. Cosmatos, who directed this utterly preposterous star vehicle (and who also directed Stallone in the previous year's "Rambo: First Blood Part II") has a strong penchant for deftly staged action choreography, including several car chases, shoot-outs, and the final showdown between Cobretti and the "Night Slasher" in a foundry.
Speaking of the "Night Slasher," Brian Thompson proves to be a worthy adversary to Stallone's Cobra, and is, honestly, the most interesting character in the whole movie, by far. We don't know much about the "Night Slasher" or his true motives, other than he's "evil" (according to what Thompson was told by Stallone himself about the character) and only wants to wipe out society's "weak" and anyone who would oppose him and his cult. But Thompson makes him scary and gives the "Night Slasher" an intimidating physical presence with only a minimum of dialogue and despite only being featured in a few scenes (and having one of the coolest-looking knives ever in an action movie). In short, he's the best thing about the movie, even if he was still sold short by the film's star, who's featured in just about every scene and spouts off one corny one-liner after another.
Lastly, when discussing the "Night Slasher" and his well-armed neo-fascist cult, back then, such bizarre antagonists were merely over-the-top cartoon characters who only existed on the fringes of society and in post-apocalyptic action yarns (i.e., the "Mad Max" trilogy). But in today's times, and with the threat posed by such "fringe" individuals who have no qualms whatsoever about acting on their radical beliefs a very real thing to a democratic society, the passage of time has given "Cobra" a frightening prescience that it was never meant to have. While this may seem to elevate "Cobra" in some degree or fashion, the fact remains that it hasn't aged well and is a stale product of its time.
Sylvester Stallone would go on to make many better movies after "Cobra," but it also represents a film from a time when he'd let his over-sized ego overshadow his art.
5/10
(P. S.: As someone who majored in criminal justice in college and who loves action movies like "Dirty Harry," I can honestly say this movie is wholly unrealistic in terms of its portrayal of police work - simply because it doesn't seem like its police detective protagonists are very intelligent and don't do much in the way of actually investigating crimes. More so, a rule-breaking cop like Cobretti would be unemployable on any police force, even a so-called "Zombie Squad" - for the simple reason that he wouldn't be able to make cases, either because suspects would wind up dead, or because said suspects could justifiably level excessive force or police brutality complaints against the LAPD that would make Cobretti fully accountable for his actions and most likely be fired, if not put in prison. To make it worse, it's even implied that Cobretti's bosses give him the okay to use his unique brand of quasi-fascist vigilante tactics in his pursuit of the "Night Slasher." Think about his line: "This is where the law stops, and I start." Even a "rogue cop" like Clint Eastwood's Inspector "Dirty Harry" Callahan would ultimately realize the importance of working within the legal system that he was sworn to uphold, protect, and enforce - even if he did not always personally agree with the decisions being made by the courts and even if it also made it more difficult for him to do his job. That's the price we pay for living in a democracy.)