Cobra (1986)

A tough-on-crime street cop must protect the only surviving witness to a strange murderous cult with far-reaching plans.

Director:

George P. Cosmatos

Writers:

Paula Gosling (novel), Sylvester Stallone (screenplay)

Stars:

Sylvester Stallone, Brigitte Nielsen, Reni Santoni

6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Sylvester Stallone	...	Marion Cobretti
Brigitte Nielsen	...	Ingrid
Reni Santoni	...	Gonzales
Andrew Robinson	...	Detective Monte
Brian Thompson	...	Night Slasher
John Herzfeld	...	Cho
Lee Garlington	...	Nancy Stalk
Art LaFleur	...	Captain Sears (as Art La Fleur)
Marco Rodríguez	...	Supermarket Killer (as Marco Rodriguez)
Ross St. Phillip	...	Security Guard
Val Avery	...	Chief Halliwell
David Rasche	...	Dan
John Hauk	...	Low Rider
Nick Angotti	...	Prodski
Nina Axelrod	...	Waitress

Storyline

As crime runs rampant in the United States, the hard-as-nails LAPD Lieutenant, Marion "Cobra" Cobretti, is the only cure for the crime-infested urban jungle of Los Angeles. In the meantime, a string of seemingly unconnected and unmotivated random assaults on civilians will soon drag the hardened officer into a violent war against the psychopaths of the secret organisation named "The New World". With the criminal society's sole purpose to weed out the weak, Cobra will escort an important witness--the young model, Ingrid--out of town to protect her; however, the movement's delusional killers will stop at nothing to track her down. Now, the only one who stands in their way is the one-man-army Lieutenant. Are they prepared for Cobra's nasty bite?

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Plot Keywords:

psychotronic film | cult film | serial killer | tough guy | wisecrack humor | 

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Taglines:

Crime is the disease. Meet the Cure.

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Thriller

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Certificate:

R

Did You Know?

Trivia

Brian Thompson had to buy his own ticket to see the film himself personally because he was not invited to the films' premiere by the films' producers and Warner Bros. which still mystifies him to this day.

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Goofs

When Cobra blasts the supermarket psycho with his .45, no shell casings are ejected from the chamber.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Marion Cobretti: [narrating] In America, there's a burglary every 11 seconds, an armed robbery every 65 seconds, a violent crime every 25 seconds, a murder every 24 minutes and 250 rapes a day.

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Alternate Versions

There is uncut,about 2 hour long work print of Cobra. This work print contains many scenes not shown in any other versions. Almost all deaths scenes are longer and much more gorier,some characters have more dialogue or character development scenes(Ingrid's photographer friend,Cobra's partner Gonzalez,detective Monte and some others),action scenes are much longer with more violence and deaths (hospital attack and attack on Cobra's place,car chase,pick-up truck chase and final shootout) some parts of the movie have different music than the one heard in DVD versions.

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Connections

Referenced in Cinderelo (2017)

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Soundtracks

Voice of America's Sons
(Theme from Cobra)
Performed by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band
Written by John Cafferty
Produced by Kenny Vance
Courtesy of Scotti Brothers Records

User Reviews

It says a lot on America in the mid-80's

Cobra is not a good action film. Neither is it a good cop drama or a good buddy cop film. Cobra is something else. It is a testimonial of what the USA were about in the late Reagan era.

The film introduces us to Marion Cobretti, a cop with an attitude who won't respect the rules since they are made to protect the bandits, the killers and the rapists. He thinks that to fight those, he has to act like them.

That is how he gets into conflict with his boss, Monte who is presented as a liberal freak who'd rather let people get killed than to use violence on the evil men. In a particular scene, Cobretti and his colleague Gonzales are talking about how they'd like to punch a hole in this Monte's chest. They are half-joking about it but you still feel that those trigger-happy cops would pretty much be able to do it anytime if they felt like it.

That same Monte is also presented as the person responsible for hiring a traitor female cop and forcing Cobretti to work with her. The result of this is that Cobretti almost gets killed because of the left-wing tolerant attitude of this liberal superior.

At the end of the movie, Cobretti saves the day by using every technique he knows to exterminate his foes(shooting them, blow them up, put them on fire, etc.) and then goes to punch his liberal boss in the face.

What really fascinates me the most in this film is how those ideas were mainstream less than 20 years ago. How crowd were supposed to react positively to this final punch in the mouth making a statement that liberals were responsible for the rise of crime in our society.

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook

Country:

USA Israel

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 May 1986 (USA)

Also Known As:

Cobra

Filming Locations:

2701 Manhattan Beach Blvd; Redondo Beach, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$25,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$12,653,032, 25 May 1986

Gross USA:

$49,042,224

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$49,042,224

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros., Cannon Group, Golan-Globus Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) Ultra Stereo (35 mm prints) (as Eagle Stereo)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1