Black Cobra

Recently the uncut version (Australian VHS, the British is cut by 1 min 20 odd) of this very odd Italian Fred "The Hammer" Williamson film

Fred stars as the repellent Malone, a tough talking cop.

He say's to a girl he is protecting when she begins to speak "shut up, if you need to move your mouth put some food in it" (I would have thought of a coarser line)

He is on the hunt for some camp looking "bad guys" who replete with Bouffant hair and studded jackets look like prime "batchelor's for life" but seem to like killing, shooting and de-fouling who ever they can find.

Quite a good laugh with some grim scenes but at the end of the day in this one Fred has a butt bigger than a bus, his gut is held in by his belt, and when he runs he wobbles. He still kicks them all into the next century though

The ever watchable Fred 'The Hammer' Williamson headlines in this action outing that owes more than just a little to the Sylvester Stallone hit Cobra.

The plot for instance is directly stolen - erm, I mean borrowed from the aforementioned Hollywood flick and involves a group of disillusioned social misfits led by Karl Landgren (Apocalypse Mercenaries/Demons 2) who are terrorising the city with their decidedly antisocial behaviour. During one attack however, a sexy female photographer (the lovely Eva Grimaldi) manages to snap a few shots of our naughty boy in the act as it were. She manages to escape with her life but subsequently finds herself on the receiving end of the gangs unwanted attention as they desperately hunt her down in order to reclaim the evidence she has of them (oh and to kill her of course!)

Where is our main man the Hammer during all this? Well, as it turns out he is given the assignment to protect our damsel in distress. Needless to say - any film with Fred Williamson in it always features a fair quota of ass kicking and this is no exception, although it has to be said that the action isn't handled with nearly as much enthusiasm by the director as it could and indeed should have which is a real shame.

Nonetheless, the film remains at least enjoyable throughout and doesn't outstay it's welcome with it's relatively short running time.

Followed by three sequels (although the final one barely features Williamson in it!)

This is one of the films on the super-cheapo Brentwood 4 movie DVD set called Dealin Dirty.

Fred Williamson vs. a poofy bunch of 5'3" twerps on dirtbikes. I can't think of one good thing to say about this movie. An incoherent steaming pile. Fred is obviously bored by the film, to his credit he doesn't even try to act (...I dont show up 'till the check clears...got it??). Some of the nameless Italian actors do try to act a bit. Not really much point though, because it seems like someone lost the only copy of the script about half way through shooting.

The highlight of the film is the chief bad-guy. He looks like Pete Sampras' little brother after illegal estrogen therapy. He tries to menace, but no one can convincingly menace in bluejeans that are so well ironed.

There are a few unintentionally hilarious lines, like the almost-verbatim rip-off of the "do you feel lucky punk" dialog from one of my favorite Clint Eastwood flicks. It would have been genius if the lines were exactly the

same, but one of the sub-genius writers must have thought that no one would notice that he ripped the lines off if he changed a few words. Good thinking - that was close.

Overall Black Cobra is, poorly filmed, terribly scripted, terribly acted, and generally idiotic. Worst of all it is boaring.

I just thought of something good to say...Black Cobra is a lot better than the film Dealin Dirty (shot on video) that the DVD set is named for. Just the title sequence was enough to make me flip to the Anna Nicole Smith Show.

AVOID THE WHOLE SET!

Cobra Nero(aka Black Cobra)has average music more suited to Italian zombie flicks than an action film and more than it's share of bad acting,dumb bad guys and sweaty close ups yet it has some well shot action sequences while Mr Williamson is on screen and some well done gore effects.The climax is a bit longwinded but it still left me wanting to watch more.Luckily there have been a couple of sequels since so we can all look forward to seeing Fred Williamson playing Malone again.

I love B movies and I enjoyed Black Cobra. I wanted something to watch one rainy afternoon (I noticed that another reviewer watched it like that too) and so I gave this a look and I'm glad I did. Black Cobra is low low budget flick that provided enjoyable escapism for 90 minutes and kept me entertained. This is the type of film that you really have to accept on it's own terms or just leave alone. Ripping it apart would be easy but all the things that one could criticize are the exact same things that make Black Cobra the entertaining low budget flick that it is. One last thing: I agree with the other reviews that say the music in this flick sounds like it should be from a zombie movie. The Hammer should fight zombies in Black Cobra 4. I HOPE SOMEBODY READS THIS AND MAKES IT HAPPEN.