‘You’re a disease, and I’m the cure...’
Cobra is an uneasy melding of two distinct cinematic styles. On the one hand, it attempts to embrace the grime and guts of the ’70s era of ultra-violent, ultra-gritty cop movies. Despite being set in L.A. it most closely evokes the work of NYC auteur Abel Ferrera – or at least it attempts to. On the other hand, this being 1986, Cobra has one foot firmly in the MTV era. The combination of Stallone’s chiselled face and terrible soft rock standards is an odd mix and Cobra never really decides what it wants to be…
With a terrifying street gang on the loose, the LAPD turn to unconventional duo Marion ‘Cobra’ Cobretti (Stallone) and his partner Gonzales (Reni Santoni). They might not play by the rules but they get results etc etc. The pair team up with escaped victim Ingrid (Brigitte Nielsen) in order to find justice.
Director George P. Cosmatos, reuniting with Sly here after also being at the helm for Rambo: First Blood Part II, wisely chooses to resist the urge to give the villains any kind of backstory whatsoever. They are baddies. That’s all anyone needs to know. What we could have done with, however, is a bit more information about the titular protagonist. Whilst Stallone’s natural charisma shines through, our eponymous hero doesn’t have much of a personality. This void is filled with car chases, gun fights and aviator shades – with only limited success. Other films within this genre have done what Cobra is attempting to do much better – some of them within Stallone’s own career, in fact.
Cobra will always be the kind of film that cineastes of my generation enjoy – at one point there is a particularly wonderful montage that intercuts Stallone strolling through the seedy streets of L.A. with some kind of sexy photo shoot featuring a half-naked woman and a bunch of robots. It’s all wonderful nonsense. In the end, though, Cobra isn’t authentic enough or silly enough to leave much of an impression. There is the faint whiff of missed opportunity about the whole enterprise.