Cobra

A criminal fiction with suspense , intrigue , frantic action , turns , a lot of twisted incidents , at the same time charged with tension and high level staging which the viewer could really enjoy . An American narcotics agent is murdered in Italy. The head of the department (William Berger) decides to contract Larry Stanziani, 'The Cobra'. Larry, a former agent and now a third-rate private eye goes to Genoa , Italy , where he uses the opportunity to get even with an old enemy, but soon he finds out he's facing a merciless criminal organization with mafia connections. As Larry looks for the main enemy , Leo Kandinsky (ordinary director Michele Soavi) , while he falls in love for a suspect disco music public relations called Brenda (striking Sybil Danning) . The ex-Italian agent is a man of action who'll stop at nothing to get his purports and at whatever cost , as he takes on a powerful European drug ring resulting in fateful consequences.

Formula thriller with plenty of action , crisply edition , intrigue , suspenseful , skin bared , twists , turns and lots of violence in exploitation style with reminiscent to "The French Connection" , "Dirty Harry" and ¨Charles Bronson¨films . A cop movie set in the Seventies , being realized in Italian style , and made by the prolific and cult director Enzo G Castellari . Here he delivers frenetic action , thriller and violence enough along the nail-biting flick . There is a good stuntwork with car races , spectacular action scenes , shootouts and grisly killings , many of them shot in slow-moving . Passable entry in Poliziesco sub-genre with noisy action , thrills , shootouts , betrayals , car chases , explosions and large doses of violence . It belongs to Italian Poliziesco sub-genre , essentially developed in the Seventies and including ordinary trappings such as lasting car pursuits sequences , virulent blowing up and a lot of murders executed in cold blood . The film is interesting enough , though it has some flaws , gaps and failures . This film results to be one of the best among the whole saga of Poliziottesco that had its splendor in the Seventies and early Eighties . Main and support cast are pretty good , as Franco Nero is terrific as the tough private detective who comes closer to the top of the underworld organization by using expeditive means against delinquents , then his odds of survival decrease , as he battles hardly against organized crime. Being an Italian production , here appears several familiar faces at the time , as the Italian secondaries as Mickey Knox , Massimo Vanni , Romano Puppo and William Berger. Furthermore , gorgeous Sybil Danning who provides some attractive scenes if brief nudity .

It contains atmospheric cinematography by Giovanni Bergamini. As well as thrilling and moving musical score by Paolo Vasile. The motion picture was well written by ordinary Tito Carpi , Fabio Carpi and Aldo Lado , produced in medium budget by Fabrizio De Angelis and professionally directed by Enzo G Castellari in his peculiar style. Enzo is considered to be one of the best Italian artisans, who has made a nice career, shooting all kinds such as Wartime : Counterfeit Commandos , Eagles over London. Adventures : Scaramouche, Shark hunter, Tuareg , Shark 3 . Sci-fi : Bronx warriors, Escape Bronx, Warriors of wasteland. Thrillers : Light blast, Il grand racket ,The day of Cobra, La via della droga , Forajidos 77. Terror : Diabla. Westerns : Keoma, Tedeum, 7 Winchester for a massacre, Matalos y vuelve, Johnny Hamlet, Any gun can play . Rating 5.5/10. Decent and acceptable Poliziesco that will appeal to Italian exploitation fans. Worthwhile watching for thriller crime enthusiasts but neither notable , nor extraordinary , but passable .

At first glance, DAY OF THE COBRA is a spiritual remake of Castellari's genre-defining HIGH CRIME. Both take place in Genoa, both star Franco Nero as a tough-as-nail law enforcement character fighting drug dealers, both feature a kid getting nailed by a car, and a henchman being shot in the groin from below.

Unfortunately this film just doesn't have the same energy going for it. Everything feels markedly smaller and cheaper and the plot goes a bit too far out to be believable with plenty of silly dialog. It also contains some surprisingly poor performances and far too many instances of Enzo alluding to his other, better films. Nero's real life son Carlo acts in the film (as himself basically) but his subplot seems overall unconnected and just strange.

What the film does have are a few exciting foot chase scenes and a silly fistfight between Nero and a transsexual. The main theme song is silly but very hummably infectious and the whole movie moves at a brisk, though casual pace. Sybil Danning provides some welcome if brief nudity, and we learn here that she actually wears high heels in bed. Also worth mentioning is the excellent supporting "dream team" cast of legendary Italian stuntmen such as Rocco Lerro, Massimo Vanni, Angelo Ragusa, and Romano Puppo all allowed to display their respective talents as various henchmen.

Overall though the film is just too pedestrian and mediocre. Probably the least of Castellari/Nero teamings though still a cut above most of the pack of later Eurocrime movies.

The glory years of the Italian Poliziottesco (cop/crime thriller) were actually already over in 1980, but we gladly make an exception in case director Enzo G. Castellari and actor Franco Nero team up for another cult effort together. The luscious as always Sybil Danning addresses to Franco's character as Humphrey Bogart at one point, and a more accurate description I couldn't possibly give! At the start of the film, Larry Staziani is a sleazy San Franciscan private eye occupied with stalking unfaithful housewives and locating rich women's lost dogs, but he's called back to his home country of Italy to help arrest a homosexual super-criminal by the name of Kadrinksy (or something). It quickly becomes obvious that Larry also has a personal score to settle with this obscure individual, as his corruptness caused Larry's career downfall and even an imprisonment. Oh well, at least by traveling voluntarily to Italy to settle the vendetta, Larry re-earns his trademark nickname of "The Cobra". This primarily is a film to please Franco's many avid fans, and undeniably he's cooler than cool as the Cobra. He continuously bounces a little toy ball against the heads of his opponents, deliberately ruins millions worth of cocaine right in front of the dealers' eyes, sticks him gum on people's foreheads, slaps women in the face and yet still they throw themselves at his feet not even a mere two minutes later! Nero's vivid performance makes you forget that the plot is actually just mediocre and nothing you haven't seen a dozen times before. There are some occasional flashes of sheer eccentric brilliance, like the Cobra's Kung-Fu battle with a transvestite for example! The dialogs are fluently written and Nero receives excellent support from Danning, veteran actor William Berger and Ennio Girolami (the director's brother) as a sinister killer. There's a fair amount of action, though sadly nothing really sadistic, and the film comes the obligatory catchy theme song entitled "Don't Give a Damn, I am the Cobra". Hell yeah you are, Franco!

Both The Shark Hunter and Day of the Cobra feature director Enzo Castellari punching actor Franco Nero in the face. Is this some sort of in-joke?

Nero scruffs up as an Italian private investigator living in San Francisco as some sort off disgraced ex-cop. Down on his luck, he's contacted by Narcotics agent William Berger and given the task of going back to Genoa to track down a sinister figure called Kandisky, whom we see killing a guy who looks like Alan Partridge and stealing a key off him. This Kandisky person seems to be Nero's mortal enemy, and he heads off to Genoa to kick ass.

Once there, he enters a shady world of drug smuggling, imports, and Massimo Vanni wearing dodgy porn moustaches as he tries to track his prey. All is not as it seems, however, as he's followed everywhere, Kandisky starts taunting him by phone, and even glamourous night club ladies might actually be kung-fu expert men in drag.

This one takes a while to get cooking but its plain sailing due to Nero's eccentric Cobra character, who constantly chews gum and leaves it everywhere while bouncing a rubber ball all over the place. There's plenty of action, mostly of the punch up kind at first, but as the story goes on it becomes darker and more violent, with Nero not being able to trust anyone. He does have time to bed Sybil Danning a few times. Or maybe he was checking she wasn't a dude.

I do have a couple of niggles, however. While I'm always up for Nero shooting Massimo Vanni, he'd already shot him in the balls in High Crime, and Nero loses a kid to a speeding vehicle, like he did in the film High Crime. I have a sneaking suspicion that Castellari might have been running out of ideas here, which is why perhaps he moved on to ass-kicking post apocalyptic films.

You can't fault the back up cast here: Big Romano Puppo and Wee Massimo Vanni on hired goon duties, Ennio Girolami, William Berger, even Enzo's daughter Stefania sporting some dodgy looking dreadlocks. It all worked for me.

Like other Enzo Castellari - Franco Nero teamings, this is a case of a routine script directed with flair. Castellari stages plenty of energetic fistfights and chases, and Franco Nero brings some of the qualities that made him a cult favorite - his humor, his athleticism, and of course his accent (IMDB lists the language as Italian, but I think it was filmed, not dubbed, in English). The script, however, is strictly formula stuff; some of the twists I guessed (seriously, is there anyone who has watched even one Italian film before who couldn't guess the fate of Nero's innocent son?), some I did not (Sybil Danning's role turns out to be more important than it appears at first), but generally there is nothing here that you have not seen before. Except maybe for the scene where Nero fights a karate-chopping transvestite, but even something similar to this has happened at least once before - in the beginning of "Thunderball". (**)