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Thoughts on Cobra




Sometimes, sometimes you witness a movie that is perfectly written, perfectly directed, perfectly edited to the right length, with stellar acting, on-point characters, no bullshit, perfect background score and a wonderful climax. Cobra is not such a movie. In fact, it is the exact opposite of every point made above.


The movie opens with an elaborate assassination scene. Right then it is obvious that the movie is going to be a drag. The entire sequence feels artificially inflated and made unnecessarily long. Not to mention the absurdity of the ‘science’ used. And after all that, the scene is not even satisfying. The entire movie is a sequence of such scenes.


To be honest, the director was onto something cool or atleast curious before he tried to make it into a corporate villain / sentimental / romantic / superstitious drama. A schizophrenic assassin / maths teacher who gets info about his targets by solving coded sudoku puzzles in the newspaper. A father figure who posts said sudoku puzzles. An interpol officer who is trying to investigate this. There. That might have had even a small chance of making a watchable movie, maybe even a good one. 


But no, the director had to stuff it with things that are not just unnecessary but positively deteriorating. An unnecessary romance that adds absolutely no value to the storyline or characters or raises any stakes (If the villain had kidnapped the girl, and forced the hero to do something, it’s cliché but atleast the girl would have had a purpose, though as a glorified ransom doll. But Cobra's lead female character did not have even that purpose. She was just there as eye candy, and as an excuse for Shreya Goshal to sing a song). A twist that is not even slightly surprising. A brother-brother sentiment story that is not just boring but is actually difficult to watch. Another unnecessary romance (can you believe this) in the flashback that again serves absolutely no purpose. Shallow as hell characters that go through absolutely zero character development in the 3 hours of the movie. A maths student who, for some reason, attends defence meetings in Russia (?) and gives unsolicited clues to one of the best (?) interpol officers throughout the movie. If there was an Oscar for the most annoying character, this character would get it, hands down. An assassin who is glorified as a good man in the end. Some numerology or superstition that has forced the director to drag this out for 3 hours 3 minutes and 33 seconds.  If he was so dead set on the numbers he could have done 2 hours 2 minutes and 22 seconds or even 1 hour 1 minute and 11 seconds. Would not have missed much value. A corporate giant who feels unnecessarily forced into the plotline just to  keep up with the trend of having a corporate villain in the story. 

But then again, everything felt unnecessarily forced into the plotline.


The movie has a schizophrenic lead character. Does it help the viewers get a clearer idea of schizophrenia? It does not have to be an awareness documentary, but does it atleast show the pain of a serious mental illness? No. Instead it tries to make it into a chance for Vikram to act (which he did very well, as always, kudos) and make it into some kind of comic relief. And to be honest the schizophrenia should have been the biggest factor in the movie but it has very little effect except for some surreal camera work.


And whatever happened to Rahman? One can only think his hands were forced to play the notes of family sentiment. The background score was anything but memorable. 


A good story is always about the characters and rarely about events. Cobra was a proof by contradiction for this statement. Too many events, most of them unnecessary. Too many characters, all of them shallow and without triggering any sort of relatability or compassion in the viewer. Cobra was a good one liner wasted on unnecessary bullshit. Save yourself from this snake’s bite. The neurotoxin is pretty strong.


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If you like movie reviews, checkout Jagamey thanthiram review by aviyal and also Top ten feel good movies, according to aviyal.



Mozhi, Sep 2022

Comments

  1. TommySeptember 5, 2022 at 7:17 PM

    Loved the way, in which the blog was written but it seemed too long . Might have cut shorted so paraphrases or it should have been tool in brief. May be it's too long coz the movie is too, moshi might got inspired by it tho lol

    ReplyDelete

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