Cobra was one 80′s action movie I hadn’t gotten around to seeing until just recently. Turns out I wasn’t missing that much. Cobra stars Sylvester Stallone as Marion Cobretti, nickname Cobra, a big city cop serving on the “zombie squad,” a group the cops turn to get the job done in extreme cases. We get an idea of the kind of man Cobra is pretty early on when he’s called in to resolve a hostage situation at a grocery store. A crazed gunman has opened fire on shoppers, killing several and holding others hostage. Cobra grabs a beer can off the shelf, opens it and takes a sip. The audience is supposed to think this is cool rather than lament the fact that a police officer has just committed theft. When the two finally face off, the killer shouts that he’s going to explode a bomb. In classic Stallone deadpan style, Cobra says, “Go ahead. I don’t shop here.”
The main plot of the movie sees Cobra protecting a girl named Ingrid (Brigitte Neilson), a model who happens to see a creepy guy on the streets. The creepy guy and his compatriots are serial killers who have just taken the life of their latest victim, though it didn’t look like Ingrid actually saw this. Nevertheless, the killers spend the rest of the movie going to ever greater lengths to try to kill Ingrid. I think we’re supposed to assume this is because she was a witness to… something. But the killers are part of some creepy the-strong-must-destroy-the-weak satanic cult, so I’m not sure why they were so concerned about that. Cobra’s adversary on the force is a copy named Monte, played by Andrew Robinson, perhaps best known to Trekkies as Garak from Deep Space Nine. Monte sees Cobra as reckless and over-reaching.
If there’s any kind of political bent to the movie it seems to be arguing that cops must do whatever it takes to stop all of the crazed maniacs out there, but the bad guys in this movie aren’t very realistic. When was the last time you heard about a cult of knife weilding, motorcycle riding satanists laying waste to a small town? The movie is also down on the court system. When Cobra does get the drop on the main killer at the end, the killer basically says, “Go ahead and take me in, but just know they’re going to say I’m crazy so I’ll probably be out on the streets again soon.” Cobra almost murders him in cold blood telling the killer that where the law ends, he begins. He is prevented from doing so by someone else and winds up killing the guy in self-defense more or less if I’m recalling the story correctly. This serves to perhaps protect Cobra’s position on the moral high ground, but I honestly wish they’d just let him murder the guy. Not because I think it would have been the right thing to do, but because it would have at least been more in keeping with the political undertones of the movie.
In fact, the only people who seem to think Cobra is overreaching his bounds are portrayed negatively. One is a reporter, and the other is Monte who is continually portrayed as bureaucratic, weak, and a jerk. The movie fails the liberty test by portraying police as the only thing stopping society from unraveling, and for suggesting that it would be just for a cop to execute a suspect.
It’s also a tonally strange film. It’s like it can’t decide if it wants to be an action movie, or a horror/slasher movie.
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