Cocaine Bear review.
Cocaine Bear knows exactly what it is and exactly what you want out of a movie where a bear does cocaine.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Cocaine Bear
Directed by Elizabeth Banks
Written by Jimmy Warden
Starring Keri Russell, Oshea Jackson Jr, Alden Ehrenreich, Christian Convery and Ray Liotta
Cocaine Bear Review
Look…it’s not Shakespeare. Although…if at any point in time the titular bear had broken into Hamlet’s monologue I probably would have gone with it. Such is the nature of Cocaine Bear. A crowd pleasing movie that builds to moments where it can dial up the humor, insanity or gore. It’s everything you want from a movie where a bear does cocaine.
A drug dealer tosses duffel bags full of cocaine into the forest below as his plane is crashing. That cocaine is found, and ingested, by a large black bear. The drug dealers want to collect their product. The police want to find the drug dealers. A park ranger wants to enforce the peace. A mother searches for her missing daughter. A bear does cocaine.
That synopsis lays out the reasons that some of the characters arrive at the park. The last sentence is the only one that really matters. Don’t get me wrong…the characters in Cocaine Bear have backstories and purpose. Some even have character arcs. Mostly, though…they’re just there to run into one murderous cocaine fueled bear.
The cast is all in on the tone of the film. Each group of characters adds what they should. Some may as well be wearing red shirts and have been beamed down to the planet from a starship. Others we will follow until the end of the journey. Everyone in the cast is likely to get you to at least crack a smile at some point…whether it be through a line delivery or a reaction shot.
There are a good number of laughs to be had in Cocaine Bear. There is also a good amount of carnage. An impressive amount of mayhem for a studio black comedy film. The damage is played for laughs whether it be severed limbs or chewing on intestines. Just to be clear what kind of movie this is.
There are a couple of moments that I struggled to make sense of timeline wise. Characters arriving to a location prior to people who left before them…things like that. It doesn’t ruin any enjoyment of the movie or anything…it just felt like the product of some editing choices. The good news is the final edit has find pacing and little bloat.
It deploys some horror elements as well. Smartly capitalizing on what we know about the bear that the characters don’t to build a bit of tension. Fun tension. The kind that leads to a big laugh instead of a big scare. The link between telling a joke and pulling off a scare has been written about plenty of times in history. Cocaine Bear understands the similarities and expertly builds several funny payoffs.
There are enough little moments and character beats to deliver some narrative goodies as well. You come to care about some of the characters over the course of Cocaine Bear. It’s hardly the attraction to the movie…but it is there for those who crave more than a wild coked up bear ripping people to pieces. Should such a person exist.
Mostly though…it’s a bear that does cocaine. A good-looking movie filled with good humor and wild moments of a bear that does cocaine. The phrase “understood the assignment” is something the kids say these days. And by these days I of course mean used to say since old people are aware of it now. Well…Elizabeth Banks and company understood the assignment. Hopefully Cocaine Bear becomes a surprise hit and we can get a shared universe full of drugged out wild animals.
Scare Value
If you go into Cocaine Bear expecting high art…why did you pick a movie called Cocaine Bear? If you go in expecting a movie where a bear does cocaine…I’ve got some good news for you. Everyone involved is fully on board with the absurdity of the story…and the fun that can be had with it. It’s fun…and it doesn’t ask any more from you then to sit back and enjoy it.
3.5/5
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Cocaine Bear Trailer
If you enjoyed this review of Cocaine Bear, check out other new release reviews She Came from the Woods, The Lair, Sick and Unlocked
