After a blockbuster year in 1985 with the one-two punch and bullet-piercing success of ROCKY IV and RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, there was much anticipation for Sylvester Stallone’s follow-up – COBRA – in which he effectively paid tribute to Clint Eastwood’s DIRTY HARRY, right down to one of his associate police officers played by none other than Scorpio himself (the killer in the first film of the quintet), Andrew Robinson, who also appeared alongside Tom Berenger and Sidney Poitier in the support cast in SHOOT TO KILL (DEADLY PURSUIT) a couple of years later. Another reference to the Eastwood classic is in Cobra’s partner, played by Reni Santoni, who played Inspector Harry Callahan’s latest partner Chico Gonzales
It also reteamed him with his RAMBO director George P. Cosmatos and was one of two films he did with the Cannon Group of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, the other being the arm wrestling cult classic OVER THE TOP.
In COBRA, Stallone is Marion Cobretti aka ‘The Cobra’ who is assigned to protect a witness (Brigitte Nielsen) to a brutal slashing by a killer in LA called ‘The Night Slasher’. Before long, the trail leads back to Cobra – and the Slasher and his bike-mad cronies are out for him.
Although the plot is thin and pretty standard for the cop thrillers of the 1980s, it redeems itself with the dark atmosphere and the action sequences, which are what you pay to watch a film like this for.