Walking away when his ideas for "Beverely Hills Cop" were rejected by the producers, and replaced by Eddie Murphy, Sly Stallone held the middle-finger up high and wrote the screenplay and starred in "Cobra", where he pumped in the action, violence and ideas he had had for "Beverely Hills Cop". The result is what you would expect from the man riding high on his roles in the "Rocky" franchise and "First Blood". Stallone struts around chewing on a match, wearing slick, tight clothes and muttering cheesy lines like "You're the disease, I'm the cure" and racks up a body-count of 40 plus with his Jatimatic submachine gun - a very quirky weapon that never saw mass-production. The film also contains the most outrageous hand-break turn in cinema history. Stallone plays Marion Cobretti - the cop LAPD call in when they are dealing with situations that no other cop can deal with, apparently. Essentially, they just call him in when they want some dirt bag laced with bullets. There's an apparent serial killer on the loose in LA, slashing random people to death. When the model Ingrid (Brigitte Nielson) sees the culprit in action, she becomes the next target, and Cobretti is detailed to protect her. It turns out that they are not dealing with one twisted killer, but a whole legion of them, and they are organised and even have connections...
"Cobra" was never going to be more than braindead action but that is the appeal, and Stallone never has notions beyond that. He set out to make and star in the film he wanted, which is a credit to him. He shamelessly turns himself into a marketable product like Pepsi and Coors - two brands that feature throughout the movie - but what a fun, testosterone-dripping piece of work this is; a quintessential '80s action movie. According to the trivia section on IMDb, Sylvester Stallone complained to cinematographer Ric Waite that they were falling behind, and said he and his crew needed to work harder. Waite reportedly responded by saying that maybe if Stallone "gets his hands off Brigitte Nielsen's ass and stops showing off to his bodyguards" then maybe they'd be up to speed! Yes sir, that about sums it up.
"Cobra" was never going to be more than braindead action but that is the appeal, and Stallone never has notions beyond that. He set out to make and star in the film he wanted, which is a credit to him. He shamelessly turns himself into a marketable product like Pepsi and Coors - two brands that feature throughout the movie - but what a fun, testosterone-dripping piece of work this is; a quintessential '80s action movie. According to the trivia section on IMDb, Sylvester Stallone complained to cinematographer Ric Waite that they were falling behind, and said he and his crew needed to work harder. Waite reportedly responded by saying that maybe if Stallone "gets his hands off Brigitte Nielsen's ass and stops showing off to his bodyguards" then maybe they'd be up to speed! Yes sir, that about sums it up.