King Cobra

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.

Not sure what to make of this, though I will immediately say that I have never seen so much sex and nudity without actually seeing much of anything. Quite the feat given it's a film about the pornographic industry, sort of like a poor man's Boogie Nights. I had no idea this was based upon a true story, more or less, before watching it and thus was more than a little startled at a sudden and unexpected event. My little sit down to watch a film about the porn industry turned into a real life murder mystery, though there wasn't much mystery to it. There's no denying it is an interesting watch, like it or not, and I'm not sure, as I implied earlier, if I did or didn't. There are some well known names in this film, so it's clear that the intentions here were to make a quality product. In some ways they have, but it's a distasteful subject matter hard to overcome. The multi-talented James Franco is here in yet another gay role. I kind of like his sexual ambiguity, but this is not one of his better performances, though some of it does ring true. The real performance of interest comes from Christian Slater as a porn producer, as is Franco, and he gives a really accurate portrayal as a guy a bit slimy, sleazy, lustful, yet somehow underneath all of that, perhaps not such a terrible person after all. Alicia Silverstone has a small role, but she is delightful and beautiful. At the center of this are two young hot men, one on his way to gay porn fame, the other with some creds already and the entire plot is wrapped these two. They are played by the hotties, Garrett Clayton in the film's central role and Keegan Allen as his competition in this sordid world. Both are a mixed bag, particularly Clayton. He rings true for the first third or so, but when the heavy dramatics turn up, he's not quite up to the task though he does have the film's closing scene and it's a good one. To be fair, he also has the film's most complex character. Sweet and likeable at first and then something slowly quite different. My guess is most will find it either interesting such as myself or awful due to the subject matter and nudity, though with no revealing parts exposed as this is uptight America regarding male nudity. It was cheaply made and it shows, but like it or not, it is not an ineffective film. Some cool music too.

Overall, this was an enjoyable watch. Both Garrett Clayton (Brent Corrigan) and Christian Slater did a good job ...but James Franco's over-the-top acting made this seem cheezy and unbelievable. Furthermore, while they seemed to have a good budget for top-name actors, the production of this seems rather "unpolished."

I originally gave this 6-starts; then took off another star once I found out the real "Brent Corrigan" is NOT a fan of this film and he feels "they got it wrong." So while it may be "based on true events" ...it seems to be very loosely so.

I watched because I like crime shows. This one was set in the gay porn industry and a young man (very well played by eye candy Garrett Clayton) made famous by it and his unscrupulous producer. The movie was combination story about the young man's ascent in the porn industry, murder of one of the protagonists, a rival producer and his lover. 2 central plots around each of the 2 producers lives that converge at the murder.

I thought all the male actors were good in this especially Clayton that is convincing, starting the movie off as a naive youth and in the end maturing into a clever man - nicely done. It was off beat for sure but I liked it.

I think male nudity would have been gratuitous. Franco held in balance the crime story and male sexuality well in this movie.

It can be an introduction to pornography industry. Or nice mix of sex and crime. Far to be bad, it is just a superficial film, with not special story, having more the mark of James Franco obvious fascination for subject , giving , as consolation prize, the presence and decent work of Christian Slater and Alicia Silverston. So, the only sin remains a posible high expectation about King Cobra.