Cocaine Bear

Overview

Inspired by a true story, an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converge in a Georgia forest where a 500-pound black bear goes on a murderous rampage after unintentionally ingesting cocaine.

Rating

11 Reviews

• 

  Louisa Moore - Screen Zealots

  4 Apr 23, 2023

  There’s a bear high on mass quantities of illegal drugs that is going on a murderous rampage in a Tennessee state park in “Cocaine Bear,” an absolutely awful action / horror movie from director Elizabeth Banks. I understand with a premise like that, it’s supposed to be stupid. The problem is that the movie isn’t just dumb, it’s actually bad, with poor direction, acting, CGI, writing, and storytelling. Loosely based on true events (yes, really), the film is inspired by the 1985 story of a drug runner’s plane crash. In order to save a large quantity of cocaine, the man threw out several duffel bags full of the stuff over Tennessee and then jumped to his death when his parachute didn’t open. A black bear got into the drugs, consumed most of it and, according to experts, immediately died. This movie imagines what could have happened if the bear didn’t die from ingesting all that booger sugar. In this bloody and gory version, the 500 pound apex predator goes bananas and kills everyone in sight. It’s a fictional story that is stretched too thin, especially with the meager subplots about a single mom (Keri Russell), her missing daughter (Brooklynn Prince) and friend (Christian Convery), a group of criminals (Ray Liotta, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich), two park rangers (Margo Martindale, Jesse Tyler Ferguson), a police detective (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), and random tourists and teenagers that must think on their toes in order to avoid being the bear’s next victim. Jimmy Warden‘s script is atrocious because he’s trying to force a story that’s not at all compelling nor complex. The actors give clunky performances and character-wise, there just isn’t a whole lot to root for. Banks isn’t the most skilled director, and a film like this certainly doesn’t demand a whole lot of talent behind the camera. But there’s something that consistently feels “off” with her style and tone, especially in the random, mostly unsuccessful jokes. The humor didn’t work for me at all, and when I did muster a laugh, I wasn’t doing so because the movie was good — I was laughing because the movie was so dumb. I understand that a movie about a huge bear ingesting a bounty of blow is supposed to be dumb, but it also has to be good in order to work, and this movie is not. To become a cult classic, a movie must be one that you’d want to watch on repeat. “Cocaine Bear” is simply not funny enough, not campy enough, and not kooky enough to succeed. It’s nothing but a one-joke trainwreck. **By: Louisa Moore / www.ScreenZealots.com**

• 

  Wuchak

  4 Jun 5, 2023

  **_Not funny enough as a comedy and too silly to take serious_** In 1985, several bags of cocaine fall from a drug smuggling plane in the mountainous area of northern Georgia and eastern Tennessee. Near Blood Mountain, a mother black bear eats a lot of the cocaine and goes on a bloody spree as it menaces hikers, rangers, thugs, EMTs and cops. “Cocaine Bear” (2023) is a campy creature feature inspired by the true story directed by, of all people, Elizabeth Banks. It was Ray Liotta’s second to last movie before his death on May 26, 2022. Keri Russell is on hand as the concerned mother of a tween hiker. In real-life the black bear weighed 175 lbs, but this was changed to almost 400 lbs for the movie. The production unbelievably cost $35 million. I say “unbelievably” because this is a decidedly throwaway creature feature of the semi-goofy SyFy variety. The CGI is a little superior, but not enough to make any appreciable difference. I’m speaking as someone who enjoys some of the better SyFy flicks on occasion. A good example is “Sasquatch Mountain” (2006), aka “Devil on the Mountain,” which only cost $800,000. Except for the lush scenery (shot in Ireland, locations listed below), this is decent but generally meh. It’s not humorous enough as a comedy, but you can’t take it serious either because it’s too goofy. It doesn’t help that Keri is the only female worth mentioning (as a footnote at that). How this garnered as much attention as it did is a great mystery. “Grizzly Park” (2008) treaded similar terrain and, while far from a great movie, is more entertaining than this (at a fraction of the budget). The film runs 1 hour, 35 minutes, and was shot south of Dublin, Ireland, in Barnaslingan, Powerscourt and, further south, Avoca. GRADE: C-

• 

  GenerationofSwine

  1 Jun 7, 2023

  I got excited for this one, I mean it's 2023 and Cocaine Bear had the promise of NOT being political. It had the promise of NOT having meh message. It had the promise of NOT being serious. I mean, the bear was obviously the star. People were going to see it because they wanted to see a giant bear high on coke killing people in a mindless and humorous way... ... but.... something happened with the direction. The humor was clearly there on paper. That was evident enough, but the delivery was... meh. The jokes didn't land because they ran too long, the timing was off, everything was there for it to be funny and fun... it just feels like it was made by a director that can't tell a joke. And it falls on the director, because the writer clearly can. Everything is there to make it work. But all the action is predictable and all the jokes are butchered. In the hands of anyone else, this would have been hysterical fun.

• 

  Peter McGinn

  6 Jun 8, 2023

  To say that Cocaine Bear isn’t the usual style of movie I like to watch is an understatement. My wife thought it had been involved in Academy Award talk of some kind and suggested we give it a try. Not sure where the Oscar talk came from but we stuck with it, barely. The violence is that excessive sort that horror fans demand, I guess. It was easy to get past it, once you internalize that it is all special effects and make believe, of course. There was just enough humor to keep us watching, though I am sure if they come out with a sequel, we won’t get drawn in a second time.

• 

  hamfaceman

  4 Jan 4, 2024

  This movie wasn't great. Had a good sequence with the ambulance, but other than that it was pretty overhyped and was just trying to cash in on a provocative name. The ad campaign for this movie was successful so congrats to them on that.

• 

  r96sk

  6 Jun 13, 2024

  Some good death sequences aside, 'Cocaine Bear' largely bores. I do like how many of the characters go out, in ways that are quite creative in fairness. The rest of the 95 minutes though? Underwhelming. There are a few minorly amusing moments scattered in there, though for the majority it kinda just meanders through its run time; whilst watching, I could feel myself losing interest fairly regularly throughout. The cast didn't do anything for me, either. Keri Russell and Brooklynn Prince are alright, though they and the rest don't provide anything worth remembering. They, naturally, aren't assisted well by the rest of the movie, the comedy is quite weak and the characters aren't made all that intriguing. It just has enough about it that I can see it working for some viewers in terms of mindless entertainment. I'm all for flicks that do that, but this one didn't really work me personally.