Michael Ledo Robert Malone (Fred Williamson) a cop who lives by his own rules, is assigned to protect a pretty photographer (Eva Grimaldi) from a gang of gang raping and killer bikers lead by a man who looks like Richard Kiel in a black Michael Jackson gangster jacket. It was pretty cool in its day, but gangs wearing new looking jackets is Hollywood.The film doesn't show the rape and the killing is not graphic. In fact the whole vigilante cop thing wasn't well done. Available on numerous multi-packs. VHS transfer hasn't been that good.Guide: Not much swearing. Brief nudity.

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.

videomaniac I love B movies and I enjoyed Black Cobra. I wanted something to watch one rainy afternoon (I noticed that another reviewer watched it like that too) and so I gave this a look and I'm glad I did. Black Cobra is low low budget flick that provided enjoyable escapism for 90 minutes and kept me entertained. This is the type of film that you really have to accept on it's own terms or just leave alone. Ripping it apart would be easy but all the things that one could criticize are the exact same things that make Black Cobra the entertaining low budget flick that it is. One last thing: I agree with the other reviews that say the music in this flick sounds like it should be from a zombie movie. The Hammer should fight zombies in Black Cobra 4. I HOPE SOMEBODY READS THIS AND MAKES IT HAPPEN.

nobbyfu Cobra Nero(aka Black Cobra)has average music more suited to Italian zombie flicks than an action film and more than it's share of bad acting,dumb bad guys and sweaty close ups yet it has some well shot action sequences while Mr Williamson is on screen and some well done gore effects.The climax is a bit longwinded but it still left me wanting to watch more.Luckily there have been a couple of sequels since so we can all look forward to seeing Fred Williamson playing Malone again.