Maybe this is an informercial to not do cocaine

★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★

Cocaine Bear (2023)

Runtime: 95 minutes

MPAA: Rated R for bloody violence and gore, drug content and language throughout.

Cocaine Bear is really trying to test our patience, but luckily I have a lot of it.

It’s a crazy reimagining of a real-life story, in which an American black bear (known as Pablo Eskobear) was discovered dead in Northern Georgia, 1985, after ingesting fatal doses of cocaine. Drug smuggler Andrew C. Thornton II and an accomplice dropped 40 plastic containers of cocaine and jumped out of the plane above Tennessee, with Thornton dying when his parachute failed to open. After the dead bear was discovered, it was stuffed and is currently displayed at the Kentucky Fun Mall. I hope they’re not planning on Kentucky Fried Bears.

Director Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear, with a script from Jimmy Warden, wants to be the type of B-movie that delivers and does precisely what it’s title says: a bear doing cocaine and going on a murderous rampage. Does it deliver? Well, not so. There’s too less bear, and too much human drama and bickering, some of which is underdeveloped and frankly quite boring, while a subplot remains consistently interesting. Not to say that the other one is good, but we essentially need Cocaine Bear to be more Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, a constant rampage fest that hooks viewers throughout, while maintaining the same (or even better) script.

The reimagining starts off with a fun dance sequence with Andrew C. Thornton II (Matthew Rhys) dropping shipments of cocaine from a plane. It's all smooth-going, until Thornton hits his head on the plane's doorframe, rendering him unconscious and dying afterwards. Detective Bob Springs (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) investigates the scene in Knoxville, Tennessee, and identifies the failed parachutist. He's also obtaining information about the St. Louis drug kingpin Syd White (Ray Liotta, most likely in his final role), and concludes that there is likely more cocaine around.

At the same time, an American black bear in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest discovers some of the cocaine off-screen, and starts acting very aggressive towards two nearby hikers, Olaf (Kristofer Hivju) and Elsa (Hannah Hoekstra). Let's forget the fact that the bear would definitely succumb to the overdose in reality, and submit ourselves into the wild action.

Several subplots spawn, all interconnecting with the bear. Somewhere in northeast Georgia, Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) skips school along with her best friend Henry (Christian Convery) and heads to the secret falls in the Chattahoochee Forest. Their intention to paint a picture of the falls upsets Dee Dee's mother, Sari (Keri Russell), who inquires the park ranger if she has seen them. At the falls, Dee Dee and Henry find bricks of cocaine and dangerously attempts to ingest it, only to be attacked by the Cocaine Bear, splitting them up.

Park ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) and wildlife activist Peter (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) leads Sari to Dee Dee's whereabouts, where they find Henry clinging on to a tree, and a bear attack that injures Liz and kills Peter causes Sari and Henry to run. At the same time, drug accomplice Daveed (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) is sent by Syd to recover the cocaine, dragging Syd's son, Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich) to the blood mountains. Daveed runs into the Duchamps, a group of delinquents, and brutally beats all of them up. He angrily inquires Stache (Aaron Holiday) on the location of the rest of the cocaine as they embark on a long journey.

It takes quite some time to establish each subplot and starts stalling with lengthy talks, before getting into the real action. Speaking in terms of technical animation, the CG bear looks wholly realistic, and it's impressive knowing that Cocaine Bear was produced on a budget of roughly $30-35 million. The action is consistently entertaining, and whenever the bear appears and starts chomping on people, it sometimes also gets extremely graphic, with explicitly shown severed limbs in one scene where an entire body falls down, followed by the leg and the bear.

Although it's a blast watching the bear in her gruesome journey, it's also quite infrequent. Another part of the fun unexpectedly comes from the preposterous arguments between opposing sides, especially between the drug dealers, delinquents, and detective. The silly and crazy way that everyone reacts to the situation is also nothing short of amusing in contrast to the extreme violence, and we also start investing in their journey and some of Eddie's struggles.

That, though, could have used an extension and a better performance. When the bear's not on the screen, Cocaine Bear moves slowly as a whole. It's as if a great idea that could sustain an hour's film was stretched another 30 minutes. There's a generic search and rescue subplot of Sari and Henry searching for Dee Dee, and some other uninspired drug dealer conversations that rarely sound new or exciting. Final sequences get more big scale and quite darkly lit, so while it gets a little more difficult to decipher everything that's happening, it's good to see that it wraps up nicely, and some people survive instead of other bleak, depressing pictures that remove all the hope you have for the world.

Tonally, Cocaine Bear is rather indecisive. The opening and closing minutes play more like a documentary, as it swerves and showcases the greenery and mountains, with some oddly placed nature shots. It also aims to be simultaneously a horror and comedy in the middle; stretching it in both directions causes it to be underwhelming in terms of comedy, in which Cocaine Bear is not exactly that funny, and horror, in which each scene can be roughly summarised by a sudden relief followed by the punctuating, loud attack.

Still, the best way to harmlessly enjoy Cocaine Bear is to go in not fully expecting the bear murdering people, but some silliness to the human drama and their extended conflicts as well. It’s strange to see that their drama is just about as interesting as the action, but Cocaine Bear is still slightly disappointing as a whole. If only they had more rampage sequences or substance.