[Rating: Minor Rock Fist Up]
In Theaters Friday, Feb. 24
A gory, funny, irreverent triviality that doesn’t overstay its welcome throughout a roughly 90-minute runtime, Cocaine Bear delivers on its eponymous promise (and little else). A bit overstuffed with characters, and sporting action and suspense scenes that aren’t always very well blocked or shot, the movie has more than enough humor, heart, and kill creativity to bring it across the finish line.
Based VERY loosely on a real event in 1985, the film is a day in the life of a small Georgia community that contends with a cocaine trafficking airdrop gone wrong. The opening minutes feature a small aircraft pilot dropping duffel bags of cocaine out the door at a couple thousand feet before bailing out himself. Not long after, a mature black bear finds some of this cocaine in the Chattahoochee National Forest, consumes it, and goes on a kill crazy rampage.
Cocaine Bear tracks no less than a dozen characters who for one reason or another venture into the kill zone and must contend with this coked up monster. This includes a mom (Keri Russell) looking for her pre-teen daughter (Brooklyn Prince) and the daughter’s friend (Christian Convery), along with two low-level drug smugglers (O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Alden Ehrenrich) trying to recover the loot, and a cop (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) looking for them. All of them take turns fighting the bear and each other in a swirling dervish, no-holds barred gore-fest that sees no shortage of dismemberment and debauchery (the bear isn’t the only one consuming the bam-bam).
And while it starts strong with heavy doses of both cocaine and the bear, the film struggles to stay relevant within its own universe between the maulings. Much of this is due to the crowded stable of characters the script crams into this thing, which includes the mom, kids, smugglers, and cop already mentioned, but also a lonely park ranger, a European hiker, a second cop, the smugglers’ boss, and a punk delinquent with a heart of gold. And while some of these characters exist simply as red shirt grinder meat (and are wonderful in those roles), this is just too much story to juggle for a film that clocks in at just over an hour and a half.
To her credit, director Elizabeth Banks keeps the tone light and with tongue planted firmly in cheek throughout all 90-ish minutes. She’s able to calibrate the performances of her cast in a way that allows the characters to take all of this seriously in a movie that doesn’t, creating that perfect balance in tone that can make a violent car crash or bear murder both terrifying and hilarious. The staging of the action does seem to give Banks a bit of trouble, however, and at times the film can’t keep up with the action without half a dozen cuts when one or two would have sufficed.
The rendering of the CGI bear isn’t going to dethrone The Revenant for most realistic Ursidae representation in film, either, but it is clear it wasn’t meant to: an altogether wise choice for a movie with unapologetically cartoonish sensibilities. The cast all seem to be having fun as well, committing to their roles with a gusto that matches of energy of the film’s conceit and posture. Russell, Whitlock, and Ehrenrich carry much of the plot’s framework, and all three know exactly what movie they are in (even if the script sometimes doesn’t).
In a development that probably won’t surprise anyone, though, the real star of Cocaine Bear is the goddamned bear. The scenes where it is chasing and chomping are a hoot, and the moments when it isn’t struggle to keep up in most cases. Side plots about a recently deceased wife, a new dog, a single mom’s dating life, and a lonely Park Ranger’s romantic struggles all stretch the seams of a movie that doesn’t need all that stuffing, and ultimately take valuable time away from fertile opportunities for cocaine and bear-related mayhem.
Even so, this movie has more cocaine and angry bears than any other flick out at present, which makes it a tough thing to pass up if one is looking to take in a motion picture on a lazy afternoon or evening. It’s also notable for being the final feature (filmed) of the late-great Ray Liotta who, as always, is throwing 100 mph in every scene he’s in. Funny enough to keep interest between violent intervals, and gory enough to encourage a viewer to plow through the bits that don’t work, Cocaine Bear delivers on its title’s promise even if it wears off not long after consumption, much like the Columbian Marching Powder fueling the plot (and bear).
“Obvious Child” is the debut novel of Warren Cantrell, a film and music critic based out of Seattle, Washington. Mr. Cantrell has covered the Sundance and Seattle International Film Festivals, and provides regular dispatches for Scene-Stealers and The Playlist. Warren holds a B.A. and M.A. in History, and his hobbies include bourbon drinking, novel writing, and full-contact kickboxing.
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