King Cobra
King Cobra
NR | 21 October 2016 (USA)
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It's 2006, YouTube is in its infancy, and internet porn is still behind a paywall. Taking the stage name Brent Corrigan, a fresh-faced, wannabe adult video performer is molded into a star by Stephen, a closeted gay porn mogul who runs the skin flick empire Cobra Video from his seemingly ordinary suburban home. But as Brent's rise and demands for more money put him at odds with his boss, he also attracts the attention of a rival producer and his unstable lover who will stop at nothing to squash Cobra Video and steal its number one star.

Reviews
Fluentiama

Perfect cast and a good story

CommentsXp

Best movie ever!

Allison Davies

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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Juana

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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Bodo

KING COBRA is a fast-paced movie tracing the real-life events in the life of Brent Corrigan, a gay porn actor who was illegally performing under age, and who got all tied up in a murder mystery story. I got into this movie naïvely, not actually knowing anything about the history of the true events, not even knowing that James Franco and Christian Slater were involved!— and I was pleasantly surprised.As to be expected given the premise, there is a lot of male nudity... All throughout the movie exudes a sense of hedonism—one gets the impression that the whole cast had a lot of fun making this little movie. The acting is really good throughout and the main actor, Garrett Clayton, does a good job as appearing "twinky" while also being believably serious when it is called for. James Franco's character is quite reminiscent of his role in SPRING KILLERS.The real life story of what actually happened surrounding Brent Corrigan is truly compelling, which makes for a good plot. The progression of the story is well executed, but perhaps the ending was a little abrupt. All in all a fun movie. So, go and watch KING COBRA—it's not a masterpiece, but certainly a great little diversion, with a few genuine suspense moments.

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timw-254-400540

When you watch a movie like this, you expect it to be terrible, and it is. But on top of that, this film goes through great lengths to make Brent Corrigan look like he's an innocent lamb who had nothing to do with Stephen's death. In reality, we all know he was an integral part of the plan to murder his ex boss. Not only did he try to blackmail him by using his age, which they played down in this movie, but he thought he could get away with killing his boss by having two other guys do the dirty work and burning the place down. In the movie, he plays innocent as if he had no idea. The movie suggests that he only implied it, when in reality you know for sure it was a lot more than that. This is a guy who used a fake ID and then tried to make himself a victim (by the way he won a lot of money in his lawsuit... bc he made porn while under age... because he used a fake ID to do so). This is a guy who had absolutely the most incentive to get rid of his boss and get out of his contract. The movie even paints his boss as quite a rapist right before his death, so you won't feel anything for him. As if these porn stars had no choice but to hang out with this rich guy. I'm not condoning how rich old men act, but you have to be stupid to think that rich old men, no matter what their orientation, don't diddle younger people. I don't like them either, so I stay away from them.Brent is one of the worst people to walk our planet and this movie paints him as some sort of hero. He even got Alicia Silverstone to play his mom. We know the producers brought her in as bait for the gay audience. Her turn in Clueless will forever give her a gay fan base. Don't get me wrong, I love her too, but I wish she had no part in this horrible movie.

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gradyharp

Writer/director Justin Kelly created this script with co-author D. Madison Savage based on an article about a porn star and murder. The film has merit but slides into tedium by resorting to gay stereotypes despite the character roles being portrayed by a fine set of actors.The tale is the career of Sean Paul Lockhart (aka Brent Corrigan and Fox Ryder) played by the talented Garrett Clayton who at age 17 began making gay pornography with Los Angeles filmmaker Stephen/aka Bryan Kocis (Christian Slater) using the name Brent Corrigan. The films were very successful financially and "Brent' (claiming he was 18 years old) became lovers with Stephen, the owner and director of Cobra Video. Brent became famous, wanted more money, left Stephen who had an exclusive contract with Brent, only to discover he could not perform using the name Brent Corrigan as that name was the property of Cobra Video. Brent reveals he was only 17 years old when working and filming with Stephen. This news threatened Stephen's livelihood and presented Brent with the opportunity to join another set of filmmakers - Joe/Joseph Kerekes (James Franco) and his other star Harlow/Harlow Cuadra (Keegan Allen). Stephen's attempt to halt Brent's making films with Joe and Harlow ended in a murder that became famous in the California courts. To say more would be a spoiler.In addition to Christian Slater, James Franco, Garrett Clayton and Keegan Allen, the cast includes small but key roles by Alicia Silverstone and Molly Ringwald. The filming of the porn scenes is convincing without excessive exposure and the manner in which the director moves between the two lover couples balances the story well. Little is written about the porn video market and this film opens some insights into that industry.

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euroGary

'King Cobra' continues what appears to be co-producer James Franco's fascination with gay pornography (see also 'Interior. Leather Bar' and, to a certain extent, 'Kink'). I don't know why he doesn't just appear in a gay porn film himself and get it out of his system...... actually, Franco does play a porn actor in this, but anyone hoping for a display of Franco flesh is going to be disappointed: for a film set in the gay porn industry this is remarkably coy about male nudity: there are plenty of shirtless scenes, but only a few quick shots of bare backsides (none of them Franco's). So, having got that out of the way, what about the story?The film is based on the early career of porn star Brent Corrigan. He is hired by porn producer Stephen (the 'King Cobra' of the title, played - or rather shouted - by Christian Slater, looking more than ever like a bad-tempered monkey) and he soon has a large fan-base, but his contract with Stephen does not allow him to fully exploit his new-found fame. This frustrates not only Brent, but other, more dangerous folk as well.It is hard to comment on the quality of the acting when the actors are portraying members of a community that seems to attract larger-than-life personalities. For instance, Franco portrays his rival porn producer with sleazy relish - but is that merely a one-note performance, or was the real-life man like that? As Corrigan, Garrett Clayton queens his way through the film in a manner that could be offensive - but is that how the real Corrigan behaved? The only rounded performance seems to come from Keegan Allen as an abused performer.Ultimately, this is a dull film: for instance (SUPER SPOILER ALERT!), a scene where Corrigan tricks a confession from the murderers is a wasted opportunity to build up some tension: it is a dangerous situation; will he be able to get the information the police need; will the criminals suspect him - and if so, what will they do? Instead the scene has even less edge-of-your-seat tension than a reconstruction on the 'Yesterday' channel (admittedly, Yesterday would not include the swearing and possibly not the hot tub, either). In more than one way, this is disappointment, I'm afraid.

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