If you weren’t there you might not believe it but I’m here to tell you that in the mid 1980’s, Stop or my Mom Will Shoot star and Botox victim Sylvester Stallone was more popular than Walkman (the cassette listening device...not the mid-level famous indie band from the early 00’s). More popular than a package of Series 1 Garbage Pail Kids! The Italian Stallion (ick) put out EIGHT movies between 1985 and 1990 including two Rambo sequels, two Rocky sequels, and an entire flick about motherfucking arm wrestling. Dude was mad prolific. He was like the Prince of action movies but about a foot taller, white, and with no discernible musical talent of any kind. People were all to happy to buy tickets to see whatever bullshit Sly put up on the screen.
Today we’re gonna talk about Stallone’s 1986 flick Cobra, which my older cousin forced me to watch repeatedly, not because he thought it was a particularly good film, but because Stallone’s character drives, in his Masshole parlance, “a mint fahkin’ cahhh, kid!”. I went ahead and checked it out for the first time in a cool three decades and what happens is this: The film opens with a narration that tells us that, in America, there’s “a robbery every 11 seconds...a violent crime every 25 seconds...an instance of mopery every millisecond.” (ok, I totally made that last one up). The narrator then promptly disappears from the movie. They just hired a guy to tell us that, in life, there is crime. I mean...in case you didn’t already know. There’s also a ton of frenetically edited shots of a bunch of dudes in leather vests on the set of Stone Temple Pilots “Sex-Type Thing” video (barrel fires...hanging chains...loads of inexplicably slick surfaces) banging axes together high above their heads. These gentlemen are members of a violent society called The New Order, which is like Joy Division but poppier and with no Ian Curtis. They are hellbent for leather...and also for arbitrarily murdering the ever-loving shit out of people. I know this because I read about it on the back of the VHS box...which was helpful because it is NOT MENTIONED in the actual movie! Apparently Cobra originally had a running time of two and a half hours...which some folks thought was way too long for a movie like Cobra. Stallone’s solution was to go back and surgically remove about 85% of the plot...figuring that 87 minutes of shots of his character chewing up some scenery (and a shitload of toothpicks) and killing an butt ton of bad guys while rocking aviator shades and nut hugging dungarees would prolly make for a decent enough flick. If it often feels like half of the movie is missing it’s because half of the movie is actually missing. I mean...you can apparently watch a bootleg of the original 140 minute cut on YouTube...but ain’t nobody got time for that!
Right, so after the credits roll we see some C-list Danny Trejo impersonator roll into a supermarket parking lot on his motorcycle. He parks his bike in a handicapped spot like a real dick so we can immediately he is either A--Up to no good...or B--Unconcerned about parking tickets. Answer: both A & B. The dude walks into the produce section, pulls out a shotgun, and starts murdering shoppers willy nilly. The police surround the supermarket and speculate on the shooter’s motives. “Just another asshole who woke up hating the world,” one of them says. Deep, deep sigh, dudes. He tells one of the hostages he’s free to escape but then shoots him in the back as he tries to exit the store...which is a real dick move. One of the cops outside shouts “Call in the Cobra!” and I’m about to shut this flick off ‘cuz I got the herpetophobia like you read about. But no...as boss as it would be (for certain viewers) to watch a poisonous reptile swallow this murderous murderer...it turns out Cobra is the name of Sylvester Stallone’s character. Like, his momma named him Cobra?? Oh...I guess his last name is Cobretti...so ‘Cobra” to his pals. Or “Cobe” if you nasty.
Dude rolls up in his tricked out 1950 Mercury Monterey Coupe (note: I had to look this up...I know fuck all about cars) and he’s cool as a cucumber. He’s got the jeans and the shades, like I mentioned, and also a toothpick in his mouth. Like...at all times. Like...for the ENTIRE MOVIE! Although sometimes it looks like it might be a match...but dude doesn’t smoke...so that doesn’t really make sense. Or maybe he’s a former smoker and having an unlit match in his mouth helps satisfy an oral fixation? Maybe they go into his smoking cessation in the two hour version? Or, I don’t know--maybe dude just chows mad corn on the cob and always has shit stuck in his choppers. Maybe a toothpick company helped produce this film? The possibilities are endless...or...certainly plentiful enough to warrant an entire paragraph on Cobra’s ever-present toothpick...which is what you have just finished reading.
So Cobra enters the supermarket to try to help diffuse the hostage situation. He finds a Coors Banquet display and immediately crushes a brewski ‘cuz hostage negotiations are much less stressful with a bit of a buzz on. Cobra gets on the loudspeaker and tells the killer that he’s a lousy shot and that he’s gonna waste him...which...I mean...I guess is one way to try to talk someone off the ledge. The killer says he has a bomb and is gonna blow the place up. “I don’t shop here,” Cobra replies. Fair enough....fair enough. Despite the fact that it’s dark as balls in the market and Cobra refuses to take off his sunglasses, he finally locates the killer. Cobra tells him to drop his weapon but then just goes right ahead and shoots the dude seven times. “You’re a disease...and I’m the cure,” he quips. Aaaaand we have us a ballgame!
Outside of the supermarket Cobra is surrounded by reporters, who ask him if this shooting has anything to do with The Night Slasher murders. So...the dude in the market was the Night Slasher? What about all of those axe play guys?? I’m so confused! One of the reporters suggests that maybe he didn’t have to shoot the dude seven times. Cobra roughs him up before driving home to his bachelor pad in Hermosa Beach. This scene is set to a tune with a chorus that goes something like “working too hard/trying to make a living”...which makes sense as Cobra is clearly both working too hard AND trying to make a living. I pine for the days when movies were full of songs with lyrics that explained exactly what we are seeing on screen. At home, Cobra eats a days-old slice of pizza and plays with his guns and watches TV. The man on the news says that the Night Slasher has indiscriminately slaughtered everyone from nurses to an 11 year-old sexual assault victim (note: whhhhaaat????). His signature move is entering people’s houses and bludgeoning with a claw hammer while they sleep. I mean...god...DAMN, dudes!! This guy makes Ritchie Ramirez look like Bob Hope! Don’t just take it from the guy on the news: in the very next scene a waitress is leaving work when a man reaches into her carand murders the shit out of her with some sort of hand scycle. That’s some scary shit!
The next night old Slash is at it again...chopping up some lady under a bridge downtown (It’s where he drew some blood!). This time, though, he has an entire crew with him. So he is both a lone wolf serial killer and the leader of a killing gang? Man, that don’t make any kind of sense! Before Slasher and his crew can call it a murder night they are spotted by Danish model and lady who drunkenly cavorted with recently deposed Public Enemy MC Flava Flav on reality television Brigitte Nielsen. The Brig races away from the scene but a lady gang member jots down her license plate and promises to run it through the computer because she is a dirty police officer!! Ohh fuhhhh....
Back at police headquarters a small group of crusty old white police caricatures have arrived from central casting to meet with Cobra and his severely underdeveloped partner. We know the partner’s name is Gonzales and that he eats too much sugar and that’s literally all we ever learn. The brass suggest that it’s time to bring Cobra up from The Zombie Squad to help put an end to the...what have you. Let’s hit the pause button for a second: what in the WHAT is a ZOMBIE SQUAD!?? Like...a bunch of cops who hit the karaoke bar after work and nail the harmonies of “Time of the Season”? Or wait...is Stallone’s character fucking DEAD!? Is this some sort of Sixth Sense bullshit (Sorry if I just ruined The Sixth Sense for you...but also not sorry. I mean...it has been 21 years). Turns out it’s nothing fun like that. Zombie is just slang for “tough cop who plays by his own rules”. Yawn. Cobra accepts the assignment and promises to shake down sicko in the city. What follows is a montage of a Cobra shaking down every sicko in the city. I’m not sure how many montages there are in this movie (two?) but it’s way too many for a flick that’s only 87 minutes long.
Eventually the shakedown montage starts to blend into a “Brigitte Nielsen” being photographed with a bunch of Short Circuit reject robots” montage. I guess she’s some sort of model or something. And also--completely unconcerned about the axe murder she witnessed the previous evening?? She was like “hey...my name is Paul and this axe murder is between y’all!” After her shoot her photographer friend is walking her to a subterranean parking garage (and sexually harassing the shit out of her) when the Night Slasher gang comes a whompin’ and a whoopin’. They kill the photographer...who probably had it coming. The parking lot security guard tries to help out but the killers smoosh him to death with their cargo van. Then there’s a cutaway shot to some random dude in a business suit who just happens upon the scene and is promptly hacked to pieces! PIECES!
Brigitte manages to escape (I confess...I don’t really remember how and I didn’t write it in my notes. Sorry doodz). Cobra and Gonzalez interview her in the hospital and assure her that she’s safe there. When they leave Gonzalez asks Cobra if he noticed how hot the victim is...which breaks every last written rule in the police office/victim relationship handbook. Cobra says that he did not notice that she was hot...no. We know that he is lying because he will wind up marrying her before this film hits the theaters (in real life, I mean. There are no nuptials in Cobra).
Brigitte should be safe and sound in the hospital but...OH RIGHT....there’s a dirty ladycop on the murder squad! She tips off her pal Slash-O, who comes to Cedars-Sinai with his uber knife and slaughters a good half dozen hospital workers on his way to Brigitte’s room. Luckily our boy Cobra rushes to the scene and HEY!! HIS TOOTHPICK IS GONE!!! What, did he run out?? Don’t worry...it comes back like three scenes later...only to disappear intermittently for the rest of the film. Might be a fun drinking game though: take a shot every time Cobra appears without his toothpick. I’m confident you could get yourself reasonably shitfaced. Anyway, Cobra rescues Brigitte and loads her into his ride for a sick ass car chase. Having seen a lot of modern day, Fast and the Furious-style chases where cars somehow manage to jump from skyscraper to skyscraper, I can’t really criticize the one in Cobra because it looks like it is actually happening. Who is chasing whom and to where, though, is completely unclear. It’s all over the map! Literally. One second they are on the 101...and then they are in Reseda...and then they turn the corner to Chinatown...then they are in Venice Beach. I just know tons of cars crash and explode and it is awesome for the 8 year-old viewer. There’s also this moment where Cobra hits this special button on his dashboard labeled “Nitro” (as in nitrous oxide?) that makes his car go WICKED FAST! I always vowed that I would have this button installed in my car when I grew up. I guess I could still talk to the dealer that sold me my Rav 4.
Cobra wins the car chase but his higher-ups are all “this thing is so far out of control I don’t know where to start!”, which could easily be the tagline for this movie. He explains that the Night Slasher isn’t just one dude...but, in fact, an entire army of slashers...which should be GLARINGLY OBVIOUS to anyone who just watched that massive car chase. They decide that the best plan of attack is to take Brigitte out of the city and hide her somewhere. They also assign a lady cop to travel with Cobra and his partner (HR protocol) and of course it’s the friggin’ dirty cop! I mean...COME ON! They head out to a foundry town north of Barstow or wherever and check into a motel and right away...dirty cop is on the pay phone to New Order revealing their location. Cobra and Brigitte decide to share a room because of course they do. He tells her she should get some rest but she explains that she is too distracted by the sounds of him polishing up his machine guns and hand grenades. She makes some attempts at small talk--Her: what do you do to relax? Him: Look for trouble. When that fails she simply calls him over to the bed. Cue Peabo Bryson ballad. They ball.
The next morning the New Order-ers come a rolling DEEP! Like 175 dudes on motorcycles. They arrive in the foundry town and immediately start murdering every citizen in sight. Like...the town’s police force? Mutilated to death. Here I’d like to point out that the plot of this movie...as much as there is one...involves this gang trying to murder Brigitte Nielsen so she cannot identify them to the police. If they are so concerned about remaining anonymous they whyyyy would you destroy half of Los Angeles in a car chase and then assassinate a small town?? People tend to notice those things, amirite? Cobra and his partner quickly realize that the lady cop double crossed them. “I never liked that bitch,” says Gonzales. Real nice, dude.
Anyway, Brig hops into a pickup and Cobra rides in the back with his arsenal. They tear ass down the highway and the motorcycle ninjas give chase but Cobra kills a good five dozen of them...give or take. They eventually end up at the foundry ‘cuz it looks like a good enough place for a big climax...with all of its rivers of burning molten steel and whatnot. First Cobra has to square off against the #2 in command evil henchman...who usually dies the second worst death. This might a bit more suspenseful if Henchman #2 had any lines of dialogue or even a name. Cobra douses him with gasoline and tells him he has the right to remain silent. He then sets him on fire and of course the guy does not remain silent but, in fact, screams because being burned alive hurts like a bastard. Now it’s time for Cobra and The Night Slasher to come face to face. Slash asks Cobra if he wants to find hell with him (and that he can show him what it’s like). He tells Cobra that nothing can stop New Order. I believe this to be true. I mean, they even survived Peter Hook leaving the band. Slash begs Cobra to simply arrest him and let the legal system do its thing. Instead, Cobra impales Slashy on a giant hanging hook and swings his body into the molten metal like Terminators T-101 and T-1000 before (after?) him. He dies.
So New Order is defunct and Sly Stallone and Brigitte Nielsen still have at least six more months until they divorce. One of the bigwig cops backhandedly compliments Cobra on a job well done. Cobra, who does not suffer backhanded compliments gladly, punches the cop in the face. Cobe and Brig hop on one of the dead guy’s motorcycles and ride off into the sunset to a tune with lots of twinkling piano and saxophone and lyrics about “fighting in the jungles and racing in the streets” that sounds like The Boss but isn’t The Boss which can only mean one thing: It’s JOHN CAFFERTY AND THE BEAVER BROWN BAND!!!! God l love that band and their unabashed plagiarism. The end.