King Cobra

This film tells the story of a young man who goes into gay pornography at the age of seventeen. Initially he is enticed by the fame and attention. Due to his greed and inexperience in life, he gets into more trouble than he can imagine.

I didn't know what "King Cobra" was about until I watched it. It tells a captivating story of how things can go wrong. It is a little sad that he gets trapped in the situation after he becomes famous. The course of action he follows in life unfortunately goes wrong repeatedly. I actually feel very sorry for Christian Slater's character, as I don't think he deserves the outcome in the end. It is also a pleasant surprise to see him in a gay movie, and he's surprisingly very convincing in his role too. I enjoyed the film.

Not sure what to make of this, though I will immediately say that I have never seen so much sex and nudity without actually seeing much of anything. Quite the feat given it's a film about the pornographic industry, sort of like a poor man's Boogie Nights. I had no idea this was based upon a true story, more or less, before watching it and thus was more than a little startled at a sudden and unexpected event. My little sit down to watch a film about the porn industry turned into a real life murder mystery, though there wasn't much mystery to it. There's no denying it is an interesting watch, like it or not, and I'm not sure, as I implied earlier, if I did or didn't. There are some well known names in this film, so it's clear that the intentions here were to make a quality product. In some ways they have, but it's a distasteful subject matter hard to overcome. The multi-talented James Franco is here in yet another gay role. I kind of like his sexual ambiguity, but this is not one of his better performances, though some of it does ring true. The real performance of interest comes from Christian Slater as a porn producer, as is Franco, and he gives a really accurate portrayal as a guy a bit slimy, sleazy, lustful, yet somehow underneath all of that, perhaps not such a terrible person after all. Alicia Silverstone has a small role, but she is delightful and beautiful. At the center of this are two young hot men, one on his way to gay porn fame, the other with some creds already and the entire plot is wrapped these two. They are played by the hotties, Garrett Clayton in the film's central role and Keegan Allen as his competition in this sordid world. Both are a mixed bag, particularly Clayton. He rings true for the first third or so, but when the heavy dramatics turn up, he's not quite up to the task though he does have the film's closing scene and it's a good one. To be fair, he also has the film's most complex character. Sweet and likeable at first and then something slowly quite different. My guess is most will find it either interesting such as myself or awful due to the subject matter and nudity, though with no revealing parts exposed as this is uptight America regarding male nudity. It was cheaply made and it shows, but like it or not, it is not an ineffective film. Some cool music too.

Overall, this was an enjoyable watch. Both Garrett Clayton (Brent Corrigan) and Christian Slater did a good job ...but James Franco's over-the-top acting made this seem cheezy and unbelievable. Furthermore, while they seemed to have a good budget for top-name actors, the production of this seems rather "unpolished."

I originally gave this 6-starts; then took off another star once I found out the real "Brent Corrigan" is NOT a fan of this film and he feels "they got it wrong." So while it may be "based on true events" ...it seems to be very loosely so.

There isn't much anything special about this film that describes a bit of the superficial world of the gay porno movie industry. Based on real events, "King Cobra" doesn't add anything more than other films on the topic. The highlight of the movie is the good performance by the entire cast but from the beginning, we already sensed a tragic end, we just didn't know which character.

The strange but true story of Porn legend Brent Corrigan is told in this well made drama from director Justin Kelly ('I am Michael'). Sean Paul Lockhart took on the name of Brent Corrigan as a 'porn name' when he dipped his toe in the world of smut. He was taken under the, very keen, wing of Stephen played by Christian Slater in a well executed performance. He was a talented man who had a liking for young lads and the moment he saw Sean he was smitten. He also had a canny head for business and stood by the rule of not mixing the two together.

We also have the back stories and the story of a rival firm where the star was not making the kind of money that Stephen was and how the envy turned into, what some would cal 'affirmative action'. Those that know the story will not be surprised, I did not and must say this was compelling and gripping in equal measure.

The acting is all first rate with some well observed period detail but this is the very 'near past' so not too much effort really needed. The action – if one can call it that - is all simulated and mostly not seen so nothing to put one off ones dinner. The real strength is the story and the performances and they are all more than up to the task. This is a film with gay interest but it is predominantly a thriller and on that scale it scores both highly and readily – hence easy to recommended.