A tough-on-crime street cop must protect the only surviving witness to a strange murderous cult with far-reaching plans.A tough-on-crime street cop must protect the only surviving witness to a strange murderous cult with far-reaching plans.A tough-on-crime street cop must protect the only surviving witness to a strange murderous cult with far-reaching plans.
- Awards
- 6 nominations
Art LaFleur
- Captain Sears
- (as Art La Fleur)
Marco Rodríguez
- Supermarket Killer
- (as Marco Rodriguez)
Brad Bovee
- Innocent Bystander
- (as Bradley Bovee)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaA very rare workprint of the movie has circulated among fans. Although most copies are poor quality, it has 30 to 40 minutes of footage not available in any other version. It also has all of the X-rated material removed from the final release.
- GoofsIn the scene where he bumps the "hispanic gangsters" car to park his car and he argues with them, and tell them "he's bad for their health" he rips the mans white undershirt and a taped lapel mic is clearly visible on the mans chest, and again in a subsequent scene
- Quotes
Marion Cobretti: You're a disease, and I'm the cure.
- Alternate versionsIn early 1990's, a different version of Cobra was broadcast on TV. Here is the list of differences between normal version and TV edit: 1.Opening hostage scene: Alternate shot when gang member shoots with his shotgun. He shoots 2 times on fruits, but in TV cut one of these is close up shot of fruits exploding. Alternate dialogue. TV Cut - "You lookin at the brave hunter!" DVD Uncut - "You lookin at the fuckin hunter!" Close up of knife in gang members belly is cut. Line: "Don't listen to this asshole" from Gonzalez is cut. 2.Cobra arrives home: Extra few seconds dialogue scene during the Cobra's argument with low rider. Cobra turns around and says something like: "Don't dirty America, keep it clean." Cobra talks briefly with old janitor: "How you doin'? You're doing really good job here," then crosses woman coming down the stairs with her dog, checks his mailbox and goes to his apartment. Song "Suave" is playing longer in this extended scene. 3. Aftermath of first murder: Extra scene after the first Nightslasher murder in which young Asian kid brings box in police station. Cop tells the kid to stay inside and go pick himself one of the toys from the box on the other side of the room. While kid is checking the toys, cop takes the box and sees blood dripping from bottom. He then receives a phone call in which Nightslasher says something like: "Her hands are with you, but her soul is in the new world." Cop tells some other cop to trace the call and scene cuts to the regular autopsy scene. 4. Gang during the day: After Cobra shoots paper target, an extra scene is shown. Nightslasher is at his day job cutting fish in some factory, sniper guy is working in some garage and there is a shot of him looking at electric wires. In the police precinct where Cobra shoots the target, a side view of some police officers' hands and forearms is shown while they are shooting paper targets. One of them is shown with the gang's tattoo, a skull with axes, on his forearm. Couple shots of gang performing their "axes and hammers" ritual are also shown. Music during these scenes is the same one that was used for opening credits. 5. Ingrid in the studio/parking lot attack: In the photo studio, Ingrid is asked to go to a party, but she refuses. Rashe, the photographer, talks with her a bit, and Ingrid requires a security guard to go with her to her car because she feels nervous. Death scene of guy with the glasses is cut. Death scene of security guard is cut. He is not shown getting hit by the van. 6. Slasher's place/Hospital: Shot of Nightslasher cutting his finger is cut. Alternate dialogue: TV Cut - "Friggin' liar." DVD uncut - "Fucking liar" 7. Attack on Cobra: Extended version of apartment attack. Sniper arrives in the car, guy on the street looks at Cobra's place and puts his mask on. Two shots of two guys climbing up the stairs armed with axes are shown. They continue to climb and then cut the light while sniper is looking from his car. Later when he sees one of the guys shot by Cobra falling down, sniper starts the car and escapes. Some violence and blood are cut during the fight between Cobra and gang members. 8. Hospital attack: Shot of Nightslasher walking across the hallway with blood on his glove holding the knife is cut. Alternate shot of Cobra's arrival. Close up of Slasher's bloody glove is cut. 9.After the attacks: Alternate dialogue: TV cut - "Damn." DVD Uncut - "Goddamn." Line "Enough of this bullshit" from one of the cops is cut, instead he talks longer with Cobra. 10. After the chase: Extended scene where Cobra says that there is leak in the police, bald cop asks him a question. 11. "Feel The Heat": Extended dialogue between Cobra and Ingrid during the drive where he says that he never left California, and after some more dialogue, Cobra says some joke about football that ends with line "Have you seen my legs?" In restaurant, Gonzalez asks Stalk will she sexually assault him afterwards. After Cobra and Ingrid start to kiss, there is extra shot showing some old guy watching the motel from his house across the street and pulling the curtain. 12. Town attack: Extra scene where old guy is watching "DIAL M FOR MURDER" on TV. Some wires are shown being cut. Woman is washing dishes in a kitchen. Sniper is shown behind the window. Somebody catches women's hair from behind. Shots of old man watching TV and smoking pipe are shown, woman's shadow is shown while she is killed and the killer's shadow, considering the haircut, implies that killer is Nightslasher. Sniper breaks window with axe, old guy is strangled quickly, his pipe falls down to the ground, close up shot of a parrot getting nervous is shown, and then zoom on sniper face. 13. Final showdown: Death scene of sniper is cut. Shots of him burning alive are cut. Nightslasher's death scene is cut. He is only shown impaled for a few seconds, but the parts of him hanging on hook, screaming, going into fire and getting burned are cut. Extra scene after the shootout. Cobra and Ingrid are walking out of the factory when three cops show up and point shotguns at them. Cobra then says: "You guys missed the hell of a party." He also tells them that he is a cop, and when one of the other cops says that he wants answers now, Cobra says something else and then leaves.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Jean Beauvoir: Feel the Heat (1986)
- SoundtracksFeel the Heat
Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed by Jean Beauvoir
Courtesy of Columbia Records and Virgin Records
Featured review
Rating: * 1/2 out of ****
Cobra is an 80s flick all the way, made back in the days when macho action flicks featuring one-man armies reigned supreme, so it's technically a movie that should be right up my alley. But watching it again for the first time in over ten years, it serves more as a reminder that making a macho classic isn't quite as easy as it seems, and why Schwarzenegger's Commando will always be the standard by which the one-man army genre will be judged. Hell, forget Commando, I'd estimate Cobra is only about half as good as Dolph Lundgren's The Punisher, if that says anything about where this rates in the annals of 80s macho action cinema.
Sylvester Stallone stars as Lieutenant Marion Cobretti, a trigger-happy L.A. cop who shows little mercy to the scum of society. Naturally, he's the perfect man to protect a model (Brigitte Nielsen) who's the target of the Night Slasher (Brian Thompson), the head of a nasty cult that wants to create a new world order. They've got their sights set on Nielsen because she saw the Night Slasher exerting one of his more intense facial expressions on a particularly dark night, and that's apparently enough to deem her an eyewitness to a murder she clearly didn't see.
Anyway, it's obvious how the rest of the movie will play out; Cobretti will make out with the model, somehow keep her completely unharmed even when getting the both of them into lots of chases and shootouts, and he'll kill all the scum before riding off with the "babe" into the proverbial sunset. If you think I'm giving too much away, then you definitely haven't seen enough action movies.
While its an unwritten rule that one usually doesn't watch these kinds of action movies for plot, I think it's fair to say that one at least hopes for a fairly consistent flow in its narrative, or for the writer (in this case, Stallone himself) to offer up a compelling MacGuffin that bridges the action scenes well enough to hold interest between the shoot 'em up action. No such luck here; a fair portion of the plot is structured around the cult and their serial killings, but the film just glances over the cult's motives, and what is revealed sounds like it was (badly) ad-libbed by Brian Thompson on the spot.
Just as bad is the main story revolving around Cobretti protecting the model. Despite being a real-life couple at the time, Stallone and Nielsen have no chemistry, making their scenes together painfully awkward and unconvincing. Even Schwarzenegger and Rae Dawn Chong worked way better together in Commando and there wasn't even any attempted romantic tension in that relationship. If you actually rooted for Cobretti and the chick to get together by the end, you are a better person than me.
Even with all these faults, what ultimately kills the movie is that it's just not much fun. The action scenes are fairly plentiful, and a few of them are even reasonably decent (the big car chase is well-shot and edited, and a later chase scene where Cobretti mows down a lot of bikers from the back of a pick-up truck hints at the fun flick this could have been if it had boasted more self-knowingly outrageous moments like that), but without any care towards plot or character, it's hard to get involved in all the mayhem, especially when a lot of these scenes are mired in boring clichés (the final showdown is set in a foundry; argghh, I hate that setting!).
Even worse is the fact that almost everyone involved seemed painfully unaware they were making pulpy escapist cinema. Aside from a few very unsuccessful one-liners, Cobra is too serious in tone to genuinely enjoy. A lot of action movies that take themselves seriously manage to work because of (at least mild) attention to plot and characters; without these elements, the laziness of the filmmakers becomes more obvious as we watch a film that wishes to be taken seriously (there's a half-hearted attempt at a message about the hypocrisy and ineffectiveness of justice) without going into the effort to deserve that merit, and that's just plain insulting.
Cobra is an 80s flick all the way, made back in the days when macho action flicks featuring one-man armies reigned supreme, so it's technically a movie that should be right up my alley. But watching it again for the first time in over ten years, it serves more as a reminder that making a macho classic isn't quite as easy as it seems, and why Schwarzenegger's Commando will always be the standard by which the one-man army genre will be judged. Hell, forget Commando, I'd estimate Cobra is only about half as good as Dolph Lundgren's The Punisher, if that says anything about where this rates in the annals of 80s macho action cinema.
Sylvester Stallone stars as Lieutenant Marion Cobretti, a trigger-happy L.A. cop who shows little mercy to the scum of society. Naturally, he's the perfect man to protect a model (Brigitte Nielsen) who's the target of the Night Slasher (Brian Thompson), the head of a nasty cult that wants to create a new world order. They've got their sights set on Nielsen because she saw the Night Slasher exerting one of his more intense facial expressions on a particularly dark night, and that's apparently enough to deem her an eyewitness to a murder she clearly didn't see.
Anyway, it's obvious how the rest of the movie will play out; Cobretti will make out with the model, somehow keep her completely unharmed even when getting the both of them into lots of chases and shootouts, and he'll kill all the scum before riding off with the "babe" into the proverbial sunset. If you think I'm giving too much away, then you definitely haven't seen enough action movies.
While its an unwritten rule that one usually doesn't watch these kinds of action movies for plot, I think it's fair to say that one at least hopes for a fairly consistent flow in its narrative, or for the writer (in this case, Stallone himself) to offer up a compelling MacGuffin that bridges the action scenes well enough to hold interest between the shoot 'em up action. No such luck here; a fair portion of the plot is structured around the cult and their serial killings, but the film just glances over the cult's motives, and what is revealed sounds like it was (badly) ad-libbed by Brian Thompson on the spot.
Just as bad is the main story revolving around Cobretti protecting the model. Despite being a real-life couple at the time, Stallone and Nielsen have no chemistry, making their scenes together painfully awkward and unconvincing. Even Schwarzenegger and Rae Dawn Chong worked way better together in Commando and there wasn't even any attempted romantic tension in that relationship. If you actually rooted for Cobretti and the chick to get together by the end, you are a better person than me.
Even with all these faults, what ultimately kills the movie is that it's just not much fun. The action scenes are fairly plentiful, and a few of them are even reasonably decent (the big car chase is well-shot and edited, and a later chase scene where Cobretti mows down a lot of bikers from the back of a pick-up truck hints at the fun flick this could have been if it had boasted more self-knowingly outrageous moments like that), but without any care towards plot or character, it's hard to get involved in all the mayhem, especially when a lot of these scenes are mired in boring clichés (the final showdown is set in a foundry; argghh, I hate that setting!).
Even worse is the fact that almost everyone involved seemed painfully unaware they were making pulpy escapist cinema. Aside from a few very unsuccessful one-liners, Cobra is too serious in tone to genuinely enjoy. A lot of action movies that take themselves seriously manage to work because of (at least mild) attention to plot and characters; without these elements, the laziness of the filmmakers becomes more obvious as we watch a film that wishes to be taken seriously (there's a half-hearted attempt at a message about the hypocrisy and ineffectiveness of justice) without going into the effort to deserve that merit, and that's just plain insulting.
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Die City-Cobra
- Filming locations
- Santa Clarita, California, USA(climactic battle at abandoned bottle plant)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $25,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $49,042,224
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $12,653,032
- May 25, 1986
- Gross worldwide
- $49,042,224
- Runtime1 hour 27 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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