Review: “Cocaine Bear”

The true story of the real “Cocaine Bear” is surprisingly anticlimactic.  Thankfully for us, writer Jimmy Warden and director Elizabeth Banks chose not to make a documentary, but an off-the-rails comedy gore-fest that is only inspired by the basic details.  In the fall of 1985, drug smugglers threw out millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine.  Some of that ditched product was discovered by a black bear in Georgia who devoured it.  The rest of the movie is pure, blood-drenched fiction.

The first act introduces us to a variety of characters who are all working towards the same location, a small section of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.  Syd (Ray Liotta) the drug king responsible for the failed smuggling has dispatched lackey Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) and his son Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich) to retrieve what’s left of the precious cargo.  Hot on their heels is detective Bob (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), who has long been after Syd.  Meanwhile, two kids, Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) and Henry (Christian Convery), have skipped school and are on their way to explore a waterfall in the park.  As soon as Dee Dee’s mother, Sari (Keri Russell) returns from her night shift and discovers her daughter has set out for the waterfall, she too joins in pursuit.  What follows is a series of interactions between the various characters, the insane bear, and other random characters.

Once the players have all been revealed, the film gains speed.  The humor ramps up, but also the gore, which can be quick shocking at times.  At first, it’s just a severed limb or two, but each scene continues to take a step up until we’re “treated” to gruesome deaths that exceed many modern slashers.  At times it’s almost jarring to jump between silly jokes, the absolutely adorable Henry, and this type of gore, but those occasional visual shocks help main the tension through most of the film.  Thematically, it shares a lot in common with last year’s “Violent Night“, although this is far more ridiculous and over the top.  And while that one was framed similarly to “Die Hard”, “Cocaine Bear” shares a lot of elements with “Jurassic Park.”

It’s never easy to balance humor and horror, but this film does it quite well.  It only seems to falter when trying to hard to be earnest. (Which thankfully isn’t often.)  “Cocaine Bear” has a few rough edges and some silly VFX, but it’s helpful to remember, this isn’t just a movie, it’s a movie on drugs.