Why Cocaine Bear is exactly as good as it sounds
You know the kind of movie Cocaine Bear is. It’s what made films like Snakes On A Plane, Sharknado, and last years The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent headline news. Director Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect 2, Charlie’s Angels) has the task of making it more than a one line joke.
Based loosely on real events that happened in 1985, the action takes place in a small town in Georgia where a 500lb bear ingests a bag full of cocaine dropped by an ill-fated smuggler in the surrounding forests. Driven into a frenzy by the drug, the beast searches for more powder, eviscerating anyone that gets in its way.
A collection of characters attempt to convince you there is more to this than meets the (dilated) eye. The late Ray Liotta leads a group of criminals after the product; a mother (Keri Russell) fights to save her errant son and his friend from being the bear’s next meal; and multi-Emmy winner Margo Martindale is game for a laugh as a park ranger.
It’s peculiar to see such esteemed company in such a wild movie, particularly Liotta in one of his final roles before his death. Still, it’s too the cast’s credit that everyone seems to have understood what kind of comedy this is.
Mostly, however, it’s about a CGI bear ripping characters to pieces while the survivors make jokes about illicit drugs. It certainly isn’t pretending to be anything more than it is, but the joke wears thin even at a brisk hour and a half. It’s sort of film that will do well on streaming in front of a less discerning audience, just like the stoner movies of the early 2000s that became DVD blockbusters.
Cocaine Bear delivers the goods that the trailer promised. That will be enough for some, but unlikely to give it the cult status it aspires to. Banks has suggested she would like to make a sequel, Cocaine Shark, but this internet-inspired oddity is perhaps best enjoyed as a one-off.