COBRA (1986) or Hubris, Thy Name is Stallone

Every film fanatic has a list of movies that they love but cannot defend. Often these are movies that were first experienced in childhood and the intense nostalgia overrides later, more adult perceptions of quality. Then there are films that are simply so bad in certain specific ways that the entertainment value of the entire piece is tied directly to its awfulness. In these cases it almost becomes impossible for the enthusiast to refrain from proselytizing about the joys of the terrible film in question. For me COBRA (1986) is one of those movies.

Wrongheaded in nearly every way and idiotic to the point of brain death COBRA (1986) is in many ways the peak of 1980’s action madness. Sylvester Stallone was riding high as one of the decade’s most profitable stars churning out sequels interspersed with more interesting box office duds (NIGHTHAWKS, ESCAPE TO VICTORY) and epic bad choices (writing & directing STAYING ALIVE, RHINESTONE). Clearly the sequels were what was making the cash so Sly decided it was time he expanded his franchise list beyond Rocky and Rambo movies (which he is STILL making to this day). He wanted a cop character like Eastwood’s Dirty Harry and COBRA was his stab at the rogue cop genre. As this film was to finish out a trilogy of franchises for Stallone there was the boneheaded logic that the previous two were five letter titles and so another five-letter titled film would beget an ongoing series of films set in the land of cops and robbers. If you're imagining the word 'hubris' in very large bold letters possibly with blinking lights attached, you're on the right track. As there was no sequel he clearly failed.

Stallone wrote COBRA’s pompous script adapting it from a novel that just has to be better than the finished film and hired his hand-picked hand puppet George Pan Cosmotos to direct. Rocky was his most successful franchise in the mid-80’s and with ROCKY III (1982) he had managed to begin its turn into a cartoon by introducing Mr. T to the world (for better or worse). The previous year’s FIRST BLOOD (1982) sequel RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART 2 (1985) had turned his main character of John Rambo into an invincible video game avatar so perhaps by this time the die was cast. (Rambo even became an actual Saturday morning cartoon character by 1986.) I’m not sure if Stallone’s edict that the film needed to be edited down to less than 90 minutes so that an extra screening could be scheduled each day in each theater helped or hurt this mess. A longer version of this would be only dumber, I suspect. Perhaps there is a cut someplace with even more shots of Stallone posing with his snake-emblazoned handgun after enacting bloody vengeance? Surely, there were more scenes in which he chews on a toothpick to show his world-weary outlook on life? Or another self-righteous speech about how cops killing monsters is just the way it is! Hell – I’d watch it.

If you’ve never seen the film it can be difficult to explain its stupidity. The villains are an over the top death cult that seems to exist in a Clive Barker inspired nightmare warehouse where they chant and clank axes together. Somehow these rejects from a slasher film are interested in killing the weak of society but in practice they seem to just be preying on whoever they run across randomly. In a film where every character is ill-defined these silly monsters are the worst. The only reason they seem to exist is to be an army of bad guys that we can happily watch be mown down by the righteous cop. They might as well be made of pixels.

To show how awesome Stallone’s bad-ass cop is he drives a tricked out 1950 Chevy that might as well be a freakin’ Bat-mobile once we are shown its various gadgets. To one up Dirty Harry the film casts Andrew Robinson who played Scorpio in the 1971 film as Cobra’s police boss just so Stallone can make him look like a wimpy jerk in every scene they share. If Eastwood’s Harry was thought of as a fascistic thug fifteen years before then Cobra is that idea on crack. Cobra is Dirty Harry if Harry had never finished the eighth grade. By the time Stallone wedges in some poor attempts at humorous dialog about junk food between the killer cop and his partner we realize that the character onscreen has no reality at all. He’s a point and shoot dufus in mirrored shades, black gloves and tight jeans. There is no ‘there’ there. But that is probably why I enjoy watching this pathetic excuse for a film. It’s so damned bad that it kind of finds a way to be nearly perfect. A perfect film in which nearly ever choice made was wrongly decided. A film in which even the film stock seems to have been poorly chosen. A movie filled with nonsense and bad ideas and hilarious right-wing blather masquerading as learned wisdom. A movie in which a machine gun shot through a windshield can cause a truck to explode. A movie so damned stupid that it just might be the American 1980’s distilled down to 87 minutes of celluloid madness. It is a time capsule that puts the lie to the trendy worship of that benighted decade! The 1980’s is COBRA (1986) – long may it kill brain cells! He’s the cure and crime is the disease! Kick on the neon lights and clank your axes together!