‘Cocaine Bear’ Review: A charged-up romp bringing fun back to the cinema
One of this years most talked about films (at least in terms of its infamy) has now been released. Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear, starring Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr. and the late Ray Liotta in one of his final roles, does not hide from what it is: a film about a bear on cocaine. And why title it otherwise? Even one or two of the characters within the movie have lines as bleeding obvious as “the bear did cocaine”. Yet, this doesn’t detract from its quality, putting it in line with other ‘B-movie’ classics like Snakes on a Plane and Snarknado.
Cocaine Bear tells of an American black bear who comes across several brown packages stuffed to the brim with the drug of choice of the 1980s, scoffs the lot, and tears through a Georgia national state park. In typical horror-comedy fashion, a gang of unlikely-linked characters are brought face to face with the 500lb wide-eyed mammal, including a mother looking for her daughter and friend, the park ranger and her lover, and the criminals responsible for the cocaine in the first place.
Believe it or not, the film was based on a true story, although perhaps the term “inspired by real events” is more appropriate. In 1985, an American black bear consumed more than 30kg of cocaine that had fallen from a drug smuggler’s light aircraft over the Tennessee wilderness. Of course, that real-life bear died relatively quickly instead of going on a coked-up frenzy as in Banks’ film, so tongue-in-cheek moments like in the film’s opening, where factual knowledge is purported to have been acquired from Wikipedia, are more than welcome.
Well in touch with the ridiculous nature of the film’s premise, I was treated to a ‘Cocagne’ cocktail upon my arrival at the screening, a puerile mixture of Diet Coke and champagne. It tasted, as you can imagine, but I felt it was representative of a film not taking itself too seriously, and I obligingly drank the lot.
I would argue that Cocaine Bear is, at heart, a comedy, with the other half of its comedy-horror genre coming primarily in moments of homage, pastiche and parody (even at one point to the bloody westerns of yore). Concerning that latter half, Banks pays her respects to the well-worn monster-horror tropes of a hand lurking onto the screen slowly, the close-up shot opening of the eye as we and the film’s characters believe the monster (the bear) to be in slumber, and it appearing slowly out of the shadows to terrorise its victims.
For the film’s first half, I felt Banks hadn’t entirely gone hard enough on the gore. Then I found I was miserably wrong. However, the effect of this was that the gore was tasteful, rather than relied upon too much, and I found that by wanting the gore to arrive, when it did, I was more than satisfied. A scene featuring a dopey pair of ambulance drivers and their inevitable fate will long live in the memory, both for its gruesome appearance and its exhilarating hilarity.
As for those comedy aspects, they are arguably what brings the film into admiration, for they are well-written and well-performed. There are plays on masculinity with the likes of the police chief and his love for his effeminate dog and emotional bonding in the woods with the mischievous, criminal-type characters, one of whom (Aaron Holliday) has shades of Sam Rockwell about him.
And yet, beneath the primary motivators of being able to put up with (and admittedly enjoy) a film about a charged-up bear, Banks manages to squeeze in at least a few moments of family and friendship-driven poignancy too. Our rooting for the single mother, her daughter and her friend, as well as two of the more loveable criminals, is analogous to our kinship with the bear itself and its two young cubs. Even amidst the ridiculous nature of Cocaine Bear, there is still time to revel in a heart-warming moment or two.
The great thing about Cocaine Bear is that both the film itself and its audience know it is ridiculous, and it can play up to that. Judged on its own terms, Banks’ movie is a treat, a quick, ninety-minute, chizzed-up romp that provides a refreshing boost to the sombre (though brilliant) emotive cinematic works of recent times such as Aftersun and The Whale. Recommended.
