Cocaine Bear: Film Review
Brace yourselves, the movie event of the month (maybe even the year?) has arrived – Cocaine Bear.
The horror-comedy, directed by Elizabeth Banks, imagines what happened when an American black bear consumed loads of cocaine that had been dropped in the Georgia woods by drug smugglers in 1985. In real life, the bear overdosed and died, but in this reimagining, our ‘Pablo Escobear’ goes on a chaotic killing spree.
While the movie isn’t objectively good, it delivers exactly what you want from a movie outrageously titled Cocaine Bear. It is gory, hilarious and so much fun, with an excellent soundtrack to boot. It’s ridiculous but it knows it is and its tongue is firmly in its cheek the entire time. The tone is pitched exactly right and I knew I was in for a wild ride when it opened with a quote sourced from Wikipedia.
Are the characters fleshed out and well-rounded? No! Is the story very one-note? Yes! But frankly, who cares? This is the bear’s movie and everyone else is basically cannon fodder. Our titular bear has plenty of stars to choose from, with the cast including Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Ray Liotta and Alden Ehrenreich. The bear (who is brought to life well via CGI) dispatches a lot of people on his rampage in a gnarly, brutal fashion and there are other unexpected deaths on the way. It does lose momentum at times but the swift runtime of 95 minutes means it doesn’t outstay its welcome.
Cocaine Bear has a great sense of humour. Not all of the jokes landed but I still laughed out loud a ton. Russell’s Sari, Liotta’s drug lord Sydney and Brooklynn Prince as Dee Dee are played very straight, but everyone is hamming it up and making it as fun or as silly as it can be. Martindale as forest ranger Liz and Christian Convery as Dee Dee’s friend Henry made me laugh the most. Make sure you see it with a crowd!
In a world of sequels, remakes, reboots and spin-offs, it’s so exciting to have something so boldly original. Cocaine Bear was never going to be five-star material by virtue of what it is but it didn’t disappoint. It met my expectations and delivered the wild, absurd ride I was hoping for.
In cinemas from Friday 24th February