Sylvester Stallone has portrayed some of action movies’ most iconic heroes, but one character knocks Rocky Balboa and John Rambo out of the water when it comes to pure, unadulterated coolness. As an actor who achieved his greatest critical success straight out of the gate with the Best Picture winner Rocky, it was Stallone’s role as a PTSD-suffering Vietnam vet in First Blood that cemented his status as a franchise star. As a performer who always tried to outdo himself, in 1986, he pushed his action hero persona to its absolute limit in terms of pure cool.

Through the full embrace of action tropes and with excessive violence at the center of almost every scene, George P. Cosmatos’s Cobra took all the tenets of 1980s action movies and distilled them down to their purest form. As a cult classic that saw Stallone investigating a string of violent crimes while protecting a witness from her would-be perpetrators, Cobra was the only movie featuring Stallone and his then-wife Brigitte Nielsen on screen while they were still married. In this wild and outrageous story, Stallone was truly at his absolute coolest.

Why Marion “Cobra” Cobretti Is Sylvester Stallone’s Coolest Action Hero

Lieutenant Cobretti’s Signature Look Exuded Pure Coolness

With aviator sunglᴀsses, black gloves, and a matchstick clenched in his teeth, just looking at Marion “Cobra” Cobretti, it was clear this was an action hero who played by his own rules. While Rocky Balboa was a determined and often sentimental movie hero, and John Rambo was defined by his trauma, Lieutenant Cobretti was a tough-as-nails LAPD cop from their elite zombie squad. Straight from Cobra’s opening supermarket hostage scene, it was evident that Cobretti had no issues staying totally calm under pressure and would save the day even if it meant going above the law.

Cobra was born out of a new type of self-determined action hero that had its origins in Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry and was also seen through Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop. As a street-smart officer of the law with a modern fashion sense, the almost punk rock aesthetic of Cobretti added to the intensity of his shootouts and criminal takedowns. Like Rocky and Rambo, Cobretti was a man of great honor, although he pursued crooks on his own terms and didn’t hesitate to brutally kill his adversaries in the pursuit of justice.

Cobra Has Some Of Sylvester Stallone’s Best Movie Lines

Stallone’s Script For Cobra Was Packed With Incredible One-Liners

One thing that makes Cobra stand out among Stallone’s filmography is that it was packed with some of his greatest movie quotes. With a script by Stallone himself, Cobretti was constantly uttering one-liners that even rivaled the timeless catchphrases of his longtime movie rival, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in releases like The Terminator and Commando. While Cobretti never said anything as iconic as the T-800’s “I’ll be back,” it’s clear that Stallone had envisioned lines like “You’re a disease, and I’m the cure” to become phrases that endured within action movie history and which have contributed to its status as a cult favorite.

Even Cobra’s opening lines serve to justify Cobretti’s violent tactics as he coolly spoke in voiceover style over the credits and said, “In America, there’s a burglary every 11 seconds, an armed robbery every 65 seconds, a violent crime every 25 seconds, a murder every 24 minutes, and 250 rapes a day.” With this statement, we gain insight into the psychology of Cobretti and how he justifies his violent behavior as the only antidote to a broken society. While negative reviews of Cobra at the time meant a sequel was never produced, Lieutenant Cobretti remains Sylvester Stallone’s coolest action hero.

Source: Den of Geek