King Cobra – first look review

Pitched some­where between Boo­gie Nights and Spring Break­ers – with the solem­ni­ty of the for­mer and the brava­do of the lat­ter – Justin Kelly’s King Cobra pulls off its bloody mis­sion with enough humour to make you for­get the sto­ry is based on real events, while stu­dious­ly avoid­ing the gra­tu­itous­ness of those ear­li­er pieces.

The action is set a decade ago, back when YouTube was still a hum­ble start-up. A young porn star named Brent Cor­ri­g­an (Gar­ret Clay­ton) vows to turn the tables on his direc­tor and for­mer lover, Bryan Kocis (Chris­t­ian Slater), for trade­mark­ing his name and rip­ping him off. Kocis, a seem­ing­ly mild-man­nered prac­ti­tion­er, is trapped in the clos­et, shoot­ing and pro­duc­ing his lucra­tive King Cobra videos from the com­fort of his white-pick­et fenced back­yard. Unbe­known to Kocis, trou­ble lies not far away, in the form of low-rent porn-pro­duc­ing rivals, the Viper Boyz (James Fran­co and Kee­gan Allen), who want Brent all for themselves.

It’s not unusu­al to see Fran­co in this mode. What’s more sur­pris­ing is that the star and co-pro­duc­er – who pushed his direc­tor to have it ready for this year’s fes­ti­val cir­cuit – proves an unex­pect­ed high­light. Unlike Slater, who has admit­ted to hav­ing reser­va­tions about tak­ing on a char­ac­ter like Kocis, Fran­co hap­pi­ly and reg­u­lar­ly romps with the best of them on screen – and isn’t afraid to show it.

Dis­ney favourite Clay­ton is anoth­er stand-out, deliv­er­ing a believ­able approx­i­ma­tion of Zac Efron-esque eye can­dy for fans, while bold­ly play­ing against type (and pos­si­bly, against stu­dio wish­es). He inhab­its the pin-up pret­ty boy role of Brent superbly, shift­ing from green-eyed boy to semi-savvy star quick­er than Slater’s Kocis can keep him amused with a new sports car.

Brent’s coun­ter­point, Har­low (Allen), is as dam­aged and dan­ger­ous as Brent is res­olute. When the Viper Boyz’s plan to free the lat­ter from his for­mer con­tract becomes hor­rif­i­cal­ly real, Harlow’s demons get the bet­ter of him – under­stand­ably so. It’s a brief, sober­ing moment in a film that’s more often than not focused on the hedo­nis­tic, even the vac­u­ous. Life in the Val­ley is, at least here, rea­son­ably pre­dictable and one-dimensional.

It is Slater, though, who ele­vates the piece above being a poten­tial­ly tacky tour through the dark under­bel­ly of the porn indus­try – gay or oth­er­wise. There’s a scene with him wear­ing a face pack, reflect­ing back at him­self in the mir­ror, where he is all but lost for words. As with Hol­ly­wood and the pur­suit of fame, porn is clear­ly a young person’s game. Dur­ing that pre­cious and fleet­ing moment, one feels his immea­sur­able pain at being unable to actu­al­ly be him­self in his own neigh­bour­hood, while also los­ing sleep over his abil­i­ty to keep his younger pro­tégés content.

King Cobra screened in selec­tion at Tribeca, and has proved an out-of-the-box high­light among more wor­thy and earnest con­tenders. While it clear­ly seeks to tack­le its sub­ject with a degree of grav­i­tas and con­sid­er­a­tion, an infec­tious sense of play­ful­ness is felt through­out, in cre­at­ing some­thing that feels fresh and, at times, dynam­ic. Slater hasn’t been this watch­able in a long while – nei­ther, for that mat­ter, has Fran­co. It’s a film that man­ages to be feel authen­tic, intel­li­gent and enter­tain­ing all at once. Which is not some­thing that can be said for some of Franco’s oth­er films.