Underrated 80s action fun"Crime is a disease...meet the cure"
I just saw this for the first time today- wow! I had so much damn fun with this flick! It's total badassery from the get go, which starts off with a very cool and stylish opening title. From here on in it's classic 80s action all the way with Stallone playing "Cobra" Cobretti of the "Zombie Squad"- a hard-as-nails cop who is the only one to call to take on the jobs no-one else will do. He's like a slick mix between The Punisher, Dirty Harry and Judge Dredd- donning his aviator shades, toothpick in mouth and fed up with crime, he'll do anything it takes to get the job done- and that usually involves putting shooting the sh!t out of the punks that are the cause of it all with a typically badass "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude. But underneath the hard exterior, he's a likable guy with a dry wit and everyday man sense of humour.
Cobra is enlisted with the other police to try and crack down on on some seemingly random female killings, but when a young model (Bridgette Neilsen) survives the onslaught of the villain dubbed by police as "the Night Slasher" and becomes the one and only witness, Cobra is sent to protect her, hoping as well that she will be the only key to finding the murderers as they try all it takes to come after her again and silence her for good. But not while Cobra is there- nothing will stand in his way to deliver his own brand of justice! This movie is truly a nostalgic gem of an 80s action film. It has everything in this to please fans of the genre- from psycho bad guys (here played by Brian Thompson as "The Night Slasher"- leader of a group of hardened knuckleheads hell bent on spreading their "new world order" of crime, first by killing the weak, helpless women of LA), to awesome action scenes including a fantastic car chase, explosive shoot outs, a terrific hand-to hand and hand-to-knife bare knuckle fighting, to fun one liners, all on top of brilliantly foreboding electronic style musical score (as well as heavy 80s pop tunes) It even has essences of James Cameron's "The Terminator" in it. It pretty much ticks everything it sets out to do and is the epitome of 80s action. Just what the doctor ordered.
My only gripes with the film are, well...zero! It's just pure old school fun from start to finish. Okay if I had a gripe, it would be that the UK version of the film cuts out a 3 second scene of Stallone giving a great one liner: "You have the right to remain silent" as he burns a guy to death) (why this was cut out i'll never know, especially since they show the scene of the guy getting burnt), but that's the BBFC's fault, not the film.
Otherwise- it's a truly underrated film (no idea why it flopped in cinemas when it as first released). It is an adaptation of the Paula Gosling novel "Fair Game" (which was later remade as Fair Game in 1995 with William Baldwin and Cindy Crawford), I haven't seen that, but i had one hell of a time with this one! Highly recommended for all action fans and all 80s junkies. On top of Rocky and Rambo, Stallone makes another iconic and lovable hero as Cobra. I only wish this was successful enough to warrant more sequels, but as it is- it's awesome. Film wise i'd rate it an 8/10 but really and truly it's warranting of a 9, even a 10- simply because they just don't make them like this anymore. I actually found this movie better than a load of action films in this present day. True, classic old school 80s action. Loved it.
9/10
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