Brazil cuts Stallone movie

Press, 28 August 1986, Page 10

Brazil cuts Stallone movie

NZPA-AP Brasilia Brazil’s Government has imposed censorship cuts on the Sylvester Stallone movie "Cobra” because it considered the film to be too violent.

"We’re cutting five of the most violent scenes, and raising the minimum age for viewing the film from 14 to 18,” said the director of the Federal Censorship Department, Coriolano Fagundes. “It was just too violent.” Mr Fagundes said the scenes to be cut included a stationwaggon crushing a man against a wall, the knifing of a man in a supermarket, and Stallone setting a man on fire in a factory.

“The film industry claims that this will diminish their ticket sales by 40 per cent. We’ll just have to see, he said.” The Justice Minister, Mr Paolo Brossard, had ordered Federal censors to reconsider permission for showing “Cobra.” A Ministry spokesman said Mr Brossard had made his decision after a retired policeman came out of a showing of the movie last week in the north-eastern city of Salvador and started firing a pistol, wounding three people. In Recife, another north-eastern city, an audience wrecked the cinema after seeing the movie.

“Cobra” opened in Brazil this month and has drawn packed houses in cinemas across the country. In Rio, more than 500,000 people have seen the film, spectators often sitting in the aisles because seats were sold out.