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.

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!!!

I guess Fred Williamson's paycheck for appearing in the "Black Cobra" films got a lot bigger every time, because his performance and enthusiasm vastly improves with each installment! Robert Malone no longer resembles to the character that was introduced in the first film. He used to be silent, gruff and indifferent, but now he makes little jokes and smiles the entire time. Perhaps it also has something to do with the fact that the quality of the films slightly improves every time as well. Part three has a lousy and inexistent plot, but there's quite a lot of straightforward and undemanding action footage. Robert Malone is called back to Manila – choice of location is purely coincidental, apparently, because none of the people of his previous adventure in The Philippines reappear – to help locate a stolen shipment of American weapons. Another special agent already tried to infiltrate in the bad guys' military camp but failed. The guy kicked a lot of butt and had some very inventive methods to conquer electric fences, but ultimately died when he jumped down a waterfall. This is why local Interpol agent Greg Duncan calls in the help of his father's reliable Vietnam buddy Malone. The film is totally senseless and there are still quite a number of dull sequences, but the delightfully cheesy B-movie action footage truly compensates for everything. The army of ugly Philippine bad guys is inexhaustible (the body count must be hundreds!) and there are plenty of cool firearm toys like machine guns (the type Rambo uses as well) and crossbows. This is the second entry in the series that is set in Manila, but this one makes much better use of the jungle filming locations. Solid and surefooted directing by Edoardo Margheriti, who actually is the son of the legendary Italian filmmaker (and personal idol of mine) Antonio Margheriti!

My review was written in December 1990 after watching the film on a South Gate Entertainment video cassette.

Fred Williamson is back in another forgettable Italo actioner for home video shelves.

Weapons stolen from a base in Manila are the core of an international blackmail scheme. Agent Forry Smith is sent in to get back the arms, and Smith recruits Williamson, dad's old pal.

It's not surprising the script goes uncredited for this uneventful film, in which it takes intrepid heroes forever to find the booty. Eventual jungle mission leads to a left-leaning Brit.

Helmer Don Edwards (pseudonym for Edoardo Margheriti) never really places the Teflon heroes in danger. All-American newcomer Smith's thesping talents are not tested here.

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.