Let’s take a walk back in history for a moment. The year is 1985, and the New York Times publishes a story that is both bizarre yet incredibly intriguing. An 79kg bear was found to have died after overdosing on cocaine. That’s right, cocaine. The narcotic, allegedly dropped out of a plane piloted by drug smuggler Andrew Thornton, ended being scattered across the wilderness in Tennessee. It was a small piece in the paper, by no means front page news, and may even have been dismissed as a joke at the time. It was, however, enough to gain a cult status in the annals of history. I wasn’t born at the time, but this was nevertheless a story I would learn about in my teenage years, and one that was always at the back of my mind. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. It turns out, the great minds that are Phil Lord and Chris Miller were equally as entranced by this story and, with the help of the great Elizabeth Banks, brought it to life in the aptly named, Cocaine Bear.
With a title like Cocaine Bear, it’s pretty clear that this isn’t going to be your run-of-the-mill thriller. Packed to the rafters with with enough violence, gore, and laughs that would fill Tarantino with glee, this is a movie that does exactly what it says on the tin. Don’t come here looking for some deep meditation on the nature of nature, this is just 95 minutes of pure batshit, over the top insanity. It’s great.
First Class B Movie
This is the best kind of B movie. You know, one with A list actors, a big Hollywood budget, and a director with great comic timing. Think Eight Legged Freaks, Sharknado, or Snakes On A Plane. Cocaine Bear hits all the right notes, allowing ourselves to suspend just the right amount of disbelief, and really lean into the absurdity of it all. This is after all a story about how a black bear got drugged out of its mind and ended up killing everyone and everything that got in its way.
Now you may be wondering, “Did all of this really happen?” How much of this is actually true? Because it is inspired by a very real, very true story. Let’s just say that the only part of the original story that made it into the movie was the fact that a bear consumed cocaine that was thrown out of a plane by a drug smuggler. The rest of what happens in this movie is just too absurd to be real. The bear is nearly 200kg bigger in the film, at no point was anyone torn to shreds, and the animal wasn’t hunting down bags of cocaine like they were candy. This might be the most loosely the phrase “inspired by a true story” has ever been used for a movie.
Now Let’s Feed Cocaine to a Shark
While there isn’t much of a story to carry out, the ensemble cast of actors really give it their all. Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Kristofer Hivju, and the late, great Ray Liotta, take all of this incredibly seriously, leaning into every moment, every joke, and every scream. The fantastic CGI bear aside, this is a movie that would have likely found its way to a VOD release had it not been for this cast.
One wrong move and this could have easily been one of those “so bad, it’s bad” movies. But Elizabeth Banks knows her material and she knows her audience. She knows just how much 80s nostalgia to play with. And she knows how to make violence and gore incredibly funny.
This is definitely not a film for everyone. Watching it, there were moments when I was thinking almost too critically about what was going on in front of me. Calling out the characters for being one dimensional. Even questioning if this was all there was to the movie. Then I stopped myself. I’m watching a movie called Cocaine Bear. What was I expecting? And as soon as I did that, as soon as I embraced the ridiculousness of it all, that’s when I began to truly appreciate this for the cinematic masterpiece that is is.
Follow Us