‎Cobra (1986) directed by George P. Cosmatos • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Cobra

1986 Directed by George P. Cosmatos

Crime is a disease. Meet the cure.

A tough-on-crime street cop must protect the only surviving witness to a strange murderous cult with far reaching plans.

Sylvester Stallone Brigitte Nielsen Reni Santoni Brian Thompson Lee Garlington Art LaFleur Andrew Robinson Marco Rodríguez Val Avery Nina Axelrod David Rasche John Herzfeld Ross St. Phillip John Hauk Nick Angotti

87 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Hollie Horror ★★★½ 10

I'm always going to wonder why Cobra cut that slice of pizza in half with a large pair of scissors.
Review by Scumbalina ★★★★ 10

This is a great movie, but that's not why I'm here. I just want everyone on Letterboxd to know that I shaved Brian Thompson's face. Physically, with my hands, touched and shaved his beard. This is a true story, it's my reality, no one can take this from me.
Review by Eli Hayes ★★★½ 8

Gotta love the AWSOM 50 license plate; delicately complex writing from Sly. I mean, all Cobra brings to battle with him is a match to chew on and a Coors to sip on -- ain't no goofs or gaffs under those shades, my friends. If there's one thing that I learned from this movie, it's never to go to battle without a goddamn match between my teeth. I'd take a baker's dozen punches to the Adam's apple before smackin' back without my handy-dandy wick... can't be poppin' caps before, first and foremost, taking care of that oral fixation.

I don't mean to get mathematical on ya but I'd say that the oral fixation, the match, the shades and the license…
Review by laird ★★★★ 7

Without any irony or that "aware of how silly it is" quality people for some goddamn reason champion in action movies these days, this Sylvester Stallone penned thriller hurls a big sleazeball of post-Dirty Harry fascism at your eyeballs faster than you can say MTV. I would argue that Cannon Films generally, and this film in particular, represent the nexus of low brow exploitation and slick Hollywood spectacle (and perhaps its apex too). This is a nasty and mean piece of work, that, though never overtly graphic, feels as grimy and ludicrous as some of the stuff that played on 42nd Street in the decade prior. It's all coated in a sheen of style from director George P. Cosmatos and…
Review by DirkH ★★★ 12

This is why you should give this film a pass:

- awsom(50)

- cutting pizza with scissors

- 'This is where the law ends and I start...........sucker!'

- Matchstick toothpick.

- Dennis Leary once said he wanted a cheese helmet so he could put it on and eat cheese the entire day. This is that.

- There is no plot. This is a good thing.

- Lots of A-team violence.

One thing:
Brigitte Nielsen is awful. It's like watching an East European shot put athlete trying to act.
Review by sydney ★★★★ 3

COBRA is certainly a unique experience. Nothing about it makes any sense, and right from the beginning the tone is set as something surreal, bordering on science fiction. It's mean as hell and the strange camera angles turn it into a kind of dirty nightmare. If Stallone was wilder it would have resembled a comic book, instead his deadpan manner turns him into a charming little Terminator. There is no real villain, only a vague army of murderous psychopaths, making the story into a paranoid vision of our society. If you've ever wondered what it's like to have social anxiety this is pretty close - Cobra is too busy battling this endless stream of faceless monsters to have an actual…

Recent reviews

Review by Evan Gould ★★★½

Seems like an essential 80’s action movie. It’s got everything that later more self aware fare would mock. The soundtrack is excellent. The villains are insane. Fire and explosions are easy to come by, including an industrial environment that has convenient flame throwing plumbing in walkways. Must not have gotten their ISO workplace certification yet. Stallone is part of the police department’s undignified “zombie squad”, so he gets to fight crime in very dangerous ways. He likes prolonged endangerment of potential hostage victims so that he can take his time to say tough stuff to the guy he’s about to kill. There’s a ridiculous police sketch in here that made me laugh out loud. Good character actors abound in this movie as well. I’ll probably get the Shout Factory Blu-ray that’s coming out soon.
Review by Fabien ★★

This movie is bad, really dumb and the dialogues are hilarious, but it's kind of fun (clearly by accident).
Review by Ben Perry ★★★

Everything makes perfect sense in this Stallone-penned Beverly Hills Cop fan fiction Rambo-Dirty-Harry-Halloween rip-off except for any explanation of why Cobra is chewing a matchstick at the beginning. Oh, wait, because that's just super badass. Nevermind, I get it. It's a shame the matchstick didn't stay in the whole time. (Supposedly, this is the origin of Ryan Gosling's character's toothpick in Drive.) Woah, the writer of the book on which this film was loosely based is also named Gosling. Crazy. That book Fair Game, by the way, inspired not one, but two films, the other being 1995's film of the same name and starring one Cindy Crawford and one William Baldwin. Stallone reportedly wanted a co-writer credit on a to-be-republished…
Review by Aaron ★★

Watched this train wreck due to my new found love Mandy and hearing about on a podcast recently where the heads talked to Panos, son of director George kinda of time this in with his fathers seminal Stallone flick. Cobra always had a bad ass movie cover, but it’s backdrop of testosterone anti hero’s who always win, get chicks and live clean healthy lives led to other failures and copy cats- Stone Cold is nearly a shot for shot remake.
There are flourishes for second unit directing with red drenched backgrounds and really great moments I.mn editing and lighting but this is so Han fisted and it’s one of those my dad probably felt good to be a redneck about. It’s really bad.
Review by ChenVideo ★★★★

Y'a une scène ou Cobra prend un faux sandwich géant sur le comptoir d'un restaurant, le montre à Brigitte Nielsen et dit : «Votre sandwich est prêt!» pour ensuite la ketchup-shamer sur la quantité qu'elle mets sur ses frites. Et je pense qu'on a ici une des plus belle scène de l'histoire du cinéma d'action. ET C'EST PAS DU TOUT L'ALCOOL QUI PARLE.

Film de Noël saison 2018-2019 #4
Review by Ben T ★★★½

“As long as we play by these bullshit rules and the killer doesn't, we're gonna lose.”

I don’t know what Sly’s character was advocating for in this movie. He seems to hate the very idea of laws. That he can’t just blow someone away seems to irk him. But he’s a cop still? Its kind of a precursor to Judge Dredd in a weird way. It’s totally bonkers but this movie is peak 80s action movie fun. A true Cannon classic.
Review by 72s3e ★★★★★

Includes a music video starring a super model, possibly a wind machine, robots
Review by Cadj ★★★½

Insane car chase, tons of dad jokes, great action, Stallone cutting a pizza slice in half through the middle with scissors.

What's not to love.

Genuinely weird how this never spawned at least a sequel, never mind multiple.
Review by Chris ★★★

More like a horror movie than I remembered. Still pretty funny though.