The Black Cobra 3

If the first film in this series was influenced by Cobra and the second was a riff on Lethal Weapon, this third instalment is channelling Commando. In this one, Fred is sent back to the Philippines for budgetary reasons and has to deal with some bad guys in the jungle. Cue lots of explosions and machine gun fire. This one is probably a slight drop in quality from the first two but amazingly, its still not that bad.

Believe it or not: Fred "The Hammer" Williamson has made three Black Cobra movies. Three of 'em! Somebody else must like watching these thing if there's three of 'em (at least that's what I tell myself). Each Black Cobra flick is a little better than the one before it. These things deliver fun B movie entertainment, if you like that sort of thing, and I've had a blast watching these. There's just nothing like "The Hammer" kicking butt in Italy and the Philippines to make the world seem a like a whole lot better place on a rainy afternoon. Right from the start I knew that Black Cobra 3 was going to be fun stuff since the first scene with "The Hammer" is a real hoot. Pop some corn and take this flick for what it is: fun escapism.

Well to be fair, any film that features Fred Williamson is always worth at least a watch purely on account of the presence of the great man himself. Sadly, even having said this, our effortlessly super cool hero has often ended up in some rather mundane efforts....as is the case in fact with the film in question here.

Certainly the film isn't exactly bad by any stretch of the imagination, it's just not exactly memorable in any way, shape or form either. Sure there's a number of mildly entertaining (if rather lacklustre) action sequences and our man even gets to let fly with some humorous one liners but there's simply not enough substance in this to make it worth a second viewing and in addition, the film is unforgivably about as clichéd and predictable as could be humanly imaginable.

Having said this, I must make special mention of the very best scene though, a scene in fact that was previously played out similarly in the previous two entries in the series and that is the hilarious banter between Williamson and his irate police chief - absolutely first class!

This was followed by one final sequel although note well - Williamson only appears courtesy of stock footage in it!!!

Compared to the first two this is a masterpiece. The first was bad all around. The second started good and went to crap. This one starts kind of slow but the climax is a hoot. Its pretty much like Commando with a 30 minute finale at the enemy base. Very entertaining and The Hammer has plenty of charm. The scene between him and the chief is so cliché its hilarious. The acting is average, but the dialog is full of one liners. I never get sick of seeing the old knife throw camera trick. Definitely worth the 6 bucks I had to pay. BTW if you see the second and third you will notice they use the same bedroom in each, which is flipping hilarious.

Black Cobra III finds Karl Malone (Fred Williamson) called to the Phillipines to help the son of a friend of his father who is also an Interpol Agent. Although the word 'Interpol' itself should be enough to explain what exactly this movie is about, I'll explain the plot a bit further. Interpol is a fictitious multinational intelligence agency which sometimes works with but also supersedes the CIA, FBI, etc. In this case, a shipment of missiles has been stolen and a trio consisting of two huge guys (Williamson and Forry Smith) and a tough young female CIA agent (Debra Ward) have two weeks to find the weapons and make the problem go away. The plot is also decorated with a few predictable twists and turns very typical of the B thriller genre.

Well shot, adequately directed by journeyman Dan Edwards, and decently scripted, Black Cobra III is probably the best of the Black Cobra Trilogy. However, the acting was just as poor as the previous efforts. Debra Ward was probably the best actor in this film and she never bothered to appear in another. Even the fight choreography is poorly acted - surprising given Williamson's background. Thankfully, the film does not take itself too seriously.

For Williamson and B thriller fans only. Others beware.