Review of Cobra

Cobra (1986)
1/10
Take it out back and shoot it
2 February 2005
Every now and then I get an urge: I don't like to talk too much about it, but there it is, lurking… this urge. I can't tell my girlfriend, and once I've satisfied the urge, well, naturally, I feel quite disgusted with myself. You understand, though, I can't help it… I should explain. Mostly the urge involves turning down the lights, flicking on the TV and baying snobbishly and unpleasantly for 90minutes at films like Cobra. So far, I haven't found a support group for this compulsion, but I'm looking into it.

So I suppose in some ways I should feel grateful to Cobra because if films like this didn't exist, I should be forced to watch Star Wars again. And while this would undoubtedly sate my feelings of smug superiority, it would nonetheless be masochism, and I have enough of a problem with my urge as it is.

I suppose I should feel grateful, but part of the problem with my condition is that I can't. Cobra has to be one of the worst films ever made. If the illegitimate child of Miami Vice and Dirty Harry mated violently with the less poetically inclined twin of the Death Wish brothers it might bear nagging resemblance to Cobra. Cobra is living proof that, were it possible to surgically remove the 1980s from the sphere of human history (thereby losing my childhood, Gandhi, Bladerunner and Live Aid) it would be a price worth paying.

Both dialogue and delivery make the fromage of Bruce Willis positively Shakespearian in comparison. Take the following line as a sample: "Hey dirt bag, you wasted that kid for nothing. Now I think it's time to waste you!" or perhaps the following (Killer)"The court is civilized, isn't it pig?" (Sly) "But I'm not. This is where the law stops and I start - sucker!" Sly got a screen writing "credit" for this film, by the way. I mean, Rocky isn't exactly Hamlet, but what a comedown. It's incredible to think that two scant years later Die Hard was in the cinemas.

What is more extraordinary about Cobra is that the performances, camera-work and score are more lame than the script.

Anyway, unless you suffer from a similar compulsion to mine, avoid this film. It shares the credit with Commando for being the sphincter of 1980s cinema – and boy – as mister 'cott would say - that's saying summut. 1/10
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