Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Numerootno A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Walter Sloane Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Coventry I purchased "Black Cobra", as well as two of its sequels, in a DVD box set called "Urban Cinema Action", but this franchise really doesn't qualify as Blaxploitation. This is a quick Italian produced cash-in on the Sylvester Stallone action vehicle "Cobra", and I have to say these Italians were becoming more and more shameless. "Black Cobra" came out just one year after the Stallone flick and they just wantonly copied the name and added the prefix "Black" because, well, Fred Williamson is a black guy. His titular character is also a completely unorthodox, indifferent and practically silent copper who goes at war against the members of a psychopathic motorcycle gang. Is that enough similarities for you? Fred Williamson immediately demonstrates that his character, Detective Robert Malone, isn't the type of police officer you want to mess with. He walks into a public pool where's a hostage situation going on. After calmly listening to the kidnappers' demands, Malone simply replies with: "No way, pal" and blows all three of them away. See, that's how B-movie cops negotiate! There's a psychopathic motorcycle gang at large in Chicago, led by a beefcake bloke with a golden tooth and a fetish for putting on and off his sunglasses. He looks a tad bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "The Terminator" when he does that. Anyway, they are mean gangsters that run over surfers with a jeep and kill women in their own houses. Eva Grimaldi plays a gorgeous photographer who witnessed them murdering a neighbor and hold photographic evidence. Malone is burdened with the task of safeguarding her from assassination attempts that will unquestionably follow. I was really hoping for "Black Cobra" to be a wildly outrageous, excessively violent and gratuitously sleazy exploitation flick, but the sad truth is that the film is quite boring and slow-moving. The action footage is tame and poorly filmed and there aren't any remarkable moments at all. Perhaps the DVD treatment is to blame for this, but most of the film was too dark to even see what was going on and the sound quality is horrendous. The theme song is a rip-off of something I definitely heard before but can't place at the moment. Fred Williamson really seems to have troubles keeping awake and gives one of his least interested performances ever. Throughout the whole film he wears the same damn gray sweater, which makes him look like a grandfather.Trivia note: there's a strong possibility that Quentin Tarantino also saw and liked this movie. At a certain point in the film, Fred Williamson says to his superior: "That's a matter of opinion and I don't give a damn about yours". This exact same line is spoken by George Clooney in Tarantino's script for "From Dusk Till Dawn"; which also stars Fred Williamson in a supportive role.

dbborroughs Fred Williamson starred as Detective Robert Malone in a series of four Italian crime films. They are all testosterone films that ultimately defy logic and test an audience's patience to endure dumb plots and poorly executed action sequences. Williamson is a good actor but his ability to pick a project is poor. Actually I think his ability to pick up is quite good since he's constantly working.The first in the series is essentially a really poor retread of the Sylvester Stallone film Cobra. In it Malone must protect a photographer from a gang that is murdering and raping at will. Its an odd mixing of American establishing shots with Italian interiors and a cast that has a decided European look to them. You never believe any of it. I'm hard pressed to wonder which of the films is worse, this or the original Cobra. I'm leaning just a bit toward this since the original is funnier for all the wrong reasons. This film is also funny for all the wrong reasons, but Williamson is less serious and it takes the edge off some of the hilarity. I can't really recommend this even to bad movie lovers since its pretty awful

MetalGeek You gotta love those wacky Italian B-movie makers! They've never seen an idea they couldn't steal. In the case of 1987's "Cobra Nero" (a.k.a "Black Cobra"), the filmmakers obviously saw Sylvester Stallone's "Cobra" and thought "We can do that...way cheaper!" For those of you who may not remember Sly's "Cobra," Stallone played a rogue cop who played by his own set of rules, protecting a fashion model from a savage cult of murderous bikers. In "Black Cobra," former NFL star, malt liquor pitchman and 70s blaxploitation bad-ass Fred Williamson plays a rogue cop named Bob Malone (Malone = Stallone. Coincidence? I think not!) who plays by his own set of rules, protecting a fashion photographer from a savage gang of murderous bikers. You can just imagine the pitch meeting for this one. "See? She's a photographer, not a model. Totally different movie! And oh yeah, OUR guy is black!" "Black Cobra" is supposedly set in New York City (the film opens with stock footage of what appears to be Times Square, New York traffic, and the Brooklyn Bridge) but obviously the filmmakers are hoping that none of the audience has actually BEEN to America because after the opening all of the locations were quite obviously filmed in an Italian suburb. When we first meet our hero, Williamson goes "Dirty Harry" on a trio of bank robbers who are holding a group of hostages at a swimming pool. (?) When he's reprimanded by his superior officer for his lethal methods, Williamson snarls, "They were SCUM!" Anyway...oh hell, there's no point in describing this thing in depth. Fred Williamson sleepwalks through his part with a perpetual tough-guy snarl on his face (which I guess is supposed to suggest bad-assery, though it makes him look more like he's badly constipated), cigar clutched in his teeth, spouting off god-awful dialogue that was obviously written by an Italian who learned English from dime store crime novels and reruns of "Hunter." When Fashion Photographer Lady witnesses a gang of bikers murdering her next door neighbor for no apparent reason, she snaps a picture of their ringleader (a pretty boy with a gold tooth who looks about as threatening as Vanilla Ice), which makes her next on the gang's hit list. Williamson is assigned to protect her and they then spend the rest of the movie escaping constant attempts on their lives (via some of the cheesiest stunt work I've ever seen) before a final showdown in what appears to be a junk yard. During this scene Williamson delivers a gun-point speech to one of the bad guys that's such a blatant steal from Dirty Harry's famed "Do you feel lucky, punk?" that Clint would probably have sued the filmmakers into oblivion if anybody had bothered to bring it to his attention! As you might expect from an Italian production, character development is next to nothing in "Black Cobra." They try to give Williamson's character some kind of background when his partner fills Fashion Photographer Lady in on Malone's unhappy childhood and his tour in Vietnam, but the bad guys in this movie are total cartoon characters. I don't remember exactly what the motivation was for the villains in Stallone's "Cobra" but I vaguely remember that they had some sort of evil master plan in mind. In "Black Cobra" the bikers just drive around seemingly at random, apparently killing people whenever they get bored. I mean, they're not even TRYING to give them any motivation. The filmmakers obviously don't care why the bikers are bad, so why should we? Seriously, "Cobra" may not have been one of Sly's finest films, but compared to this Z-grade "homage" it might as well be "Citizen Kane." Amazingly enough, enough Italian action junkies must've paid to see "Black Cobra" because Williamson reprised the Malone character in two sequels! (I have "Black Cobra I and II" together on a double feature DVD that I picked up at the dollar store... watch for my review of "II" sometime before the universe implodes.) Though I love schlock as much as the next guy, by the middle of this one I was starting to nod off, so I would only recommend this film to people with perpetual insomnia.Oh, and in case you're wondering, the malt liquor that Fred Williamson pitched on TV for a while back in the 80s was ... King Kobra. Again, coincidence? I think not.

HaemovoreRex 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!)