Cobra

A 1986 action film directed by George Pan Cosmatos from a screenplay by Sylvester Stallone, who also plays the lead. Marion Cobretti serves in a special police unit in Los Angeles, called in on the cases where ordinary procedures of investigation and arrest have stopped working. The action is built around protecting a witness: a woman has seen a killer by chance and become the target of an organised group that does not act alone and has considerable force behind it. The hero is known by a fixed set of marks — dark glasses, a match between his teeth, a modified pistol and an old car — and they stay with him throughout. His central choice is stated plainly: to take the case to the end by his own methods, against the pressure of colleagues and the prescribed order. Alongside Stallone are Brigitte Nielsen, Reni Santoni, Andrew Robinson, Brian Thompson and Lee Garlington, joined by Art LaFleur, Mariska Hargitay, David Rasche and Val Avery. The picture stands among the works that fixed Stallone's screen image of the 1980s beside the Rocky and Rambo series, and Cosmatos had made Rambo: First Blood Part II with the same actor. Brigitte Nielsen was his partner on screen and in life during those years. Warner Bros. and The Cannon Group produced it, with Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus as producers, who had by then put the output of genre pictures on a conveyor. The score is by Sylvester Levay and the first release date is 2 October 1986. Commercially successful, the film drew sharp reviews for its harshness and its bluntness.