[Rating: Solid Rock Fist Up]
Is it too early to declar the best movie of 2023? So what if it’s only almost the end of February? In the race for wildest movie of the year, Cocaine Bear is the movie every other flick is chasing. It’s a fun, hilarious, shockingly gory, and violently dark comedy that puts its foot on the gas when the opening titles hit the screen and it does not let up until the bear has had its way with just about everyone.
Kind of based on true events that happened way back in 1985, in which a 500-lb. black bear was found dead in the woods next to 40 open containers of Florida snow deep in the mountains of Georgia. The actual bear, which Shooter Jennings has confirmed was NEVER owned by his father Waylon, despite pesky internet rumours, did not go on a rampage. Nobody died — except for the detail about drug smuggler Andrew Thornton on his way back to the U.S. of A. with 800-pounds of coke, who accidentally died trying to ditch the drugs when he thought authorities were about to take him down.
Director Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect) and screenwriter Jimmy Warden (The Babysitter) however are brave enough to ask the question ‘what if the bear loved cocaine and went bat-shit crazy?’ And then this movie happens. So, there’s a 500-pound bear on the loose, killing mofos in the mountains. Fun stuff.
The characters are almost secondary considering most of them only exist to be a victim of the bear. But the best ones are a pair of dudes working for the drug lords who lost their coke: Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr., Straight Outta Compton) and Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich, Solo: A Star Wars Story). Eddie’s dad is the drug dealer boss, Ray Liotta in his final performance — and he’s having a blast. He wants them to find the drugs before the cops. The cop in this situation is Bob (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), who steals almost every scene as a cop regretting buying a dog for fear it’s not the right dog for him.
The rest of the cast is having a blast being targets for violent bear attacks. Character actress Margo Martindale (Justified) and Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family) work for the parks department and then, just because apparently there needs to be kids doing insanely inappropriate things to add some cringe, we get mom Keri Russell (Mission Impossible 3) looking for her daughter (Brooklyn Prince) and her friend (Christian Convery), who have skipped school to go into the woods to find a waterfall. They are useless and could have been cut out completely if not for some incredible line delivery by Convery.
Again, characters, plots, story arcs….these things are not important.
This movie knows exactly what it is. A wild and ludicrous movie about a coked up bear on a rampage through the mountains. It never pretends to have a message. It never asks you to think. It never really even asks you to empathize with the bear, which, let’s be honest, is having a severe and traumatic brain event, thus the reason it’s banging its head on trees. This shouldn’t be funny, you guys. But it is, who cares? It’s a CGi bear, a made up story and nobody’s feelings are being hurt by watching a coked up bear eat dipshit campers.
Always a fun actress when she’s on screen, Elizabeth Banks is hitting her stride as a maker of fun-ass movies, and she directs the hell out of this. Banks is a veteran of wacky comedies and her experience working with and learning from wicked funny filmmakers like Michael Showalter, James Gunn, Phil Lord and Chris Miller (the latter two produced this flick) shows. She gives no fucks and embraces the lunacy of this story for a balls-to-the-wall gory comic romp.
Cocaine Bear is exactly the movie you want it to be. It’s funny. Clever. Crazy. Gory. And violent. You don’t have to see anything to understand this. Everything you need is in the title. Cocaine and Bear. If you need more, watch the trailer below.
Lover of movies and tacos. Ad man. Author. Member of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle and the Broadcast Film Critics Association. Founder of the Terror on the Plains Horror Festival. Creator and voice of the Reel Hooligans podcast.
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