History Film / Cobra

* AxCrazy: The New Order, particularly the Night Slasher. Literally as they like clanging axes too. The New Order members who go to Cobra's home to try and kill him also storm in with fire axes and hatchets instead of firearms, which quickly turns into NeverBringAKnifeToAGunfight.

* BadassBoast: "I don't deal with psychos. I put 'em away." The supermarket thug discovers the hard way [[DeadlyEuphemism the kind of "putting away" Cobra specializes in]], and this is just his first boast.

* TheMole: [[spoiler:Officer Nancy Stalk, a cop who is secretly the Night Slasher's {{Dragon}}]]

* CoolGun: Cobretti's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatimatic Jatimatic]] submachine gun. A rare gun now, as only a few hundred of them were made. For a sidearm he uses a Colt Gold Cup National Match, with ivory grips marked with a red-eyed cobra. It's a 9mm conversion, presumably so he can share ammunition with his Jati.

** Cobra carries a [[CoolGuns custom 9mm conversion M1911 pistol]] as his duty sidearm, while he also has a [=SMG=] and a few grenades for his final showdown with the cult. Plenty of evidence that he is a CowboyCop.

* AnAssKickingChristmas: It isn't really brought up but the film takes place around Christmas and copious amounts of ass is indeed kicked, mostly by Cobra.

* EmbarrassingFirstName: Lt. Cobretti's first name is Marion. [[LampshadeHanging He jokes about it, too,]] and admits he would have preferred to grow up with something tougher-sounding... [[Main/SelfDeprecation like "Alice".]]

* EvilSoundsDeep: The Night Slasher whose voice sounds borderline demonic at times. He's even played by Brian Thompson.

* IdiotBall: The store thug. Big time. When a cop has just proved he's incredibly quick and doesn't fuck around by chucking a knife into you ''whilst'' you are armed with guns, you drop the guns when he tells you to, you don't slowly raise the shotgun to his level with one arm whilst ''he'' has a pistol on you.

* LargeAndInCharge: The Night Slasher is the leader of a vicious cult and stands at 6'4, towering over every other character in the film.

* AnAxeToGrind: Members of the New Order are shown clanging axes together in unison early in the film.

Stallone stars as police Lieutenant Marion "Cobra" Cobretti, an intense, no-nonsense LA cop from the "Zombie Squad", who has to deal with a string of murders by a man known to police only as the Night Slasher (Creator/BrianThompson), while also dealing with various murderous nuts spouting nonsense about a "New Order". As it turns out, the Night Slasher is actually the leader of this "New Order" cult. Model Ingrid Knudsen (Creator/BrigitteNielsen) drives past one of their murders and sees the Night Slasher's face, making her the gang's prime target. She enters police custody for her own protection, under the watchful eye of Lt. Cobretti and his partner, the junk food-loving Sgt. Gonzales (Reni Santoni). Eventually, Cobra will have to use Ingrid as bait to draw out the Night Slasher and put an end to his menace once and for all.

* CoolGun: Cobretti's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatimatic Jatimatic]] submachine gun. A RareGun now, as only a few hundred of them were made. For a sidearm he uses a Colt Gold Cup National Match, with ivory grips marked with a red-eyed cobra. It's a 9mm conversion, presumably so he can share ammunition with his Jati.

* AwesomeMcCoolName: [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]]. Cobra's first name is [[EmbarrassingFirstName Marion]], but his last name, ''Cobretti'', counts as this.

* WeaponOfChoice:
** Cobra carries a [[CoolGuns M1911 pistol]] as his duty sidearm, while he also has a [=SMG=] and a few grenades for his final showdown with the cult.

* NoSeatbelts: Averted; the moment the car chase starts, Cobretti and Ingrid are shown buckling up in race car harness, which is just as well as the chase ends with Cobretti crashing the car.

* CoolGun: Cobretti's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatimatic Jatimatic]] submachine gun. A RareGun now, as only a few hundred of them were made.
** For a sidearm he has a Colt Gold Cup National Match, with ivory grips marked with a red-eyed cobra. It's a 9mm conversion, presumably so he can share ammunition with his Jati.

* CoolGun: Cobretti's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatimatic Jatimatic]] submachine gun. A RareGun now, as only a few hundred of them were made. Same for his 1911 9mm conversion.

* WeAreEverywhere: The Night Slasher's speech at the end follows this trope to the letter, but it's more of a crazed final rant than an accurate estimate of his actual following.

* CoolShades: Cobretti's Ray-Ban RB3030 Outdoorsman I aviator sunglasses.

* CoolShades: Again, Cobretti delivers this for the trifecta.

* CowboyCop: The film tries to sell Cobra as one. Apparently the Zombie Squad is an entire crew of Cowboy Cops, though we only ever see Cobretti and Gonzales. A closer look will reveal Cobra is never shown actually using excessive force: Everyone he kills in the movie ranges from "active shooter" to "charging at him with melee weapons". Other characters see him as a Cowboy Cop nonetheless, because all action hero cops must be ones.

* KnifeNut: The Night Slasher. Even in his dying moments he still clutched on to his spike-knuckled trench knife. He also uses a double-barreled SawnOffShotgun.

* {{Montage}}: "Angel of the City", which is a "Shake-down-punks-for-information-while-a-KnifeNut-killer-stalks-a-model-doing-a-photoshoot montage"

Not to be confused with the main character of the anime/manga ''Manga/SpaceAdventureCobra''. Or [[Franchise/GIJoe that other Cobra.]]

* EvilSoundsDeep: The Night Slasher.

* CommanderContrarian: Detective Monte spends the entire film belittling the usefulness of Cobra as a law enforcement officer and doesn't sees what good there is in the Zombie Squad existing, let alone allowing one of its members to help in the Night Slasher investigation in any capacity. He doesn't appreciates Cobra's methods at no point of the film, with his final line being a backhanded compliment of Cobra almost single-handedly killing the Slasher and his ''army of fanatical psychos that took over a town'', sneering that he would have found a more "subtle" solution to that.

* TheSocialDarwinist: The Night Slasher claims he murders people because he wants to kill off the weak, reasoning that this means everyone who can't fight off one of his attacks. This apparently includes children.

* {{Cult}}: The "New Order".