Cocaine Bear, directed by Elizabeth Banks, is based on events from 1985, where a black bear got into a bag full of cocaine, and, well, the rest is history. The plot revolves around a rag-tag group of teens, tourists, cops, and criminals. It follows their individual stories as the 500-pound black bear fills up with cocaine and tears the forest apart. The bear did cocaine… and these people are now trying to stop it. What a plot. I’ll give it points for originality, though.
So, since there are four different storylines the audience is meant to follow, it was a lot to keep up with at first. I knew we would eventually get to the bear, but the beginning was the set-up of these characters’ lives which was an excellent background. It just felt out of place at the time. At first, we meet many different people but it all ties in eventually.
Set in rural Georgia, the scenery of the forests added a lovely backdrop for the audience to contrast with the violence and preposterous nature of the story. The film has excellent cameos, including Keri Russell as Sari, O’Shea Jackson Jr. as Daveed, and Margo Martindale as Ranger Liz.
When I first heard about this movie, I laughed at the idea that this could be a feature film that people would go and watch. At points, it felt cheesy and try-hard. Some of the dialogue and actions felt forced and out-of-place, but to some, that could add to the comedy. With the dramatic music playing, I thought it added a nice touch. Also, some song choices were comical, and others were much more severe. Overall, a good mix for the soundtrack made it fit throughout the movie.
Also, with effects, this movie did an excellent job of making this look realistic. I thought it looked natural with the bear and some of the gore they showed.
Not going to lie; there we some laughable moments due to the banter between characters. My favorite character is probably the little boy Henry (Christian Convery) because he was 100% the comic relief in the film. But, overall, this wasn’t necessarily funny to me. It is most definitely made for a certain kind of comical crowd.
For a thriller, there were some points of suspense, but other than that, not necessarily scary. I felt this was more gross than scary, honestly. I must mention that there is gore and quite a bit. Stuff like blood and wounds show up for the majority of the movie. An ample warning if anyone watching is squeamish about body parts and dead bodies because that is used not only as part of the thriller but comedy aspect of it too. Honestly, I had to look away at points in the movie because of how much they did show the mangled body parts. To me, it was disgusting, not a thrill.
With a running time of one hour and 35 minutes, this movie was most definitely on the shorter side of things compared to some of the other films today, but for me, I couldn’t wait for this movie to be over. One thing I will say, it kept me awake. There was action all the time and suspense throughout. I think it did help that I wanted to see the ending of the resolution, but it didn’t come fast enough.
There was no clear message in this film or more profound meaning. It was light-hearted but about crime and murder, if that makes sense. Maybe there was some idea surrounding death. Or perhaps not to do drugs and how terrible they can make everyone’s lives.
I give this film 0.3 out of 5 stars.
Personally, I do not love the gory thriller aspect of this film, and the comedy was not funny enough to save this movie. Overall, I cannot recommend this movie to anyone. I get that the company was trying to think of a plausible goofy thriller, but this did not work. Especially compared to all the new films of 2023 and in the past, this movie doesn’t come close to any of them. The fact that this was based on actual events was pretty cool and a fascinating concept, but it felt like a waste of time; contrary to that, I know some people like this film, so all I can say is: to each their own.
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