Ajay Gnananamuthu’s ambitious film, Cobra, has been plagued by many obstacles and delays since commencing its first filming schedule in 2019, but finally released on some screens on Wednesday, 31 August and on other screens on 01 or 02 September. Vikram plays the lead role opposite KGF’s Srinidhi Shetty in her Tamil debut. Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan makes his acting debut in a pivotal role with Roshan Matthew also making his Tamil debut. The rest of the cast includes K.S. Ravikumar, Robo Shankar, Miya George, Mirnalini Ravi, Meenakshi Govindarajan and John Vijay.
The story of Cobra is a complex one that traverses different genres. High profile people are being killed by ingenious methods that require specialized knowledge of mathematics. Irfan Pathaan plays Aslan Yilmaz, an Interpol officer assigned to track the killer or killer. The search takes him into a complex world of veiled identities, dark secrets and grave danger in which the prime suspect in his investigation is the mild-mannered Madhi – played by Vikram.
It is another soulful performance by Vikram who has clearly given his all in a role that calls for complex emotions and intense scenes. Vikram’s performance in these challenging scenes appear effortless. Irfaan Pathaan makes a low key debut with role that does not require much acting prowess. Roshan Mathew in his Tamil debut attempts some finesse as the film’s antagonist, Rajeev Rishi but does not quite pull it off. Srinidhi Shetty makes an impassioned effort in her role as Bhavana but is unable to match the level of excellence reached by Vikram. Robo Shankar is rather wooden in his portrayal of Madhi’s friend while Meenakshi Govindarajan in her portrayal of Judy fails to endear herself to the audience.
True to pre-release promises, Cobra delivers in terms of its technical excellence and grandeur that resemble a Shankar film. Underscoring the technical excellence is the superb cinematography by Bhuvan Srinivasan and Harish Kannan which takes light usage and framing to new heights. This is further complemented by slick editing by John Abraham.
The premise and concept of Cobra is a laudable one as it examines a wide range of themes, genres and emotions. The film is colossally expensive and a significant portion of the film has been filmed on foreign soil. Unfortunately, it’s strength is also its weakness as not enough attention has been shown to these different aspects of the plot to have the potential impact on the audience. Similarly, not enough attention has been paid to the fleshing out of characters and this makes it difficult for the audience to connect as they should have. These drawbacks make the film’s running time of 183 minutes seem much longer.
At least 40 minutes of the film should have been trimmed and a little more effort should have been made with characterisation and the development of subplots. The twist in the second half is good but could have been more effective within a better crafted screenplay.
It is a disappointing effort from A.R. Rahman whose one song, Adheera is the best of a very ordinary soundtrack. Rahman’s background score is also far from his best.
Credit must be given to Ajay Gnanamuthu for dispensing with the template approach to films. It was an excellent concept but one that required more refinement.
Despite its many flaws, Cobra has enough emotion, glamour, technical excellence and innovation in plot to warrant seeing it on the big screen.
Cobra scores 7 points out of 10.