‘Cocaine Bear Review: OvertheTop Bloodbath Gives February Movie Season A Bump

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28 Feb, 2023

For a movie named after the phrase "search engine optimization," the gory comedy "Cocaine Bear" lives up to its promise. Although it looks like the most popular gay bar in Medellin, the funniest thing about Cocaine Bear is Margot Martindale's cheeky flirtation with Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Elizabeth Banks' swashbuckling horror-comedy for the money (clever but obvious) with the door wide open makes use of a hugely talented cast who provide top-notch support and B-movie appeal. Clever, but 95 minutes of incredible fun. The historically sleepy February movie season is just the thing.

Directed by Banks and written by Jimmy Ward, Cocaine Bear is inspired by the true story of Black Bear (unfortunately named Pablo Escobar), who died in 1985 after ingesting a packet of cocaine. A drug lord (the late Ray Liotta in one of his final film roles) plays muscle against David (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) and his heartbroken son Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich). Search for a large number of missing items.

The missing packages were found on the property of Liz (Martindale), a powerful ranger at Blood Mountain National Park in Chattahoochee, Florida. While awaiting a visit from her beloved gamekeeper, Peter (Ferguson), she must fend off a trio of local bullies, a formidable trio who evoke the rhetorical warning: "Pop art punks don't come out of nowhere." Meanwhile, single mother Sarah (Keri Russell) rushes to work, and mischievous daughter Dee Dee (Brooklyn Prince) skips school with her dashing friend Henry (Christian Convery).

When the kids go looking for a mysterious waterfall in the park, they find it wrapped in a nameless brown paper. They are smart enough to guess the contents, but naive enough to think that a teaspoon in their mouth is intelligence. After spraying each other's hideous faces with most of what they try, the boys are first confronted by a hot bear that has turned violent in search of more cocaine.

Sarah and the park rangers find Henry hanging from Sita's legs and hiding high in a tree, losing his friend in the woods. After Bear made his first bloody bone-crushing kill that ended well with a severed leg, Henry let out a hearty laugh, subtly predicting that "he'll feel something forever when he's human."

As several characters approach a fatal parking lot, including two completely inexperienced doctors, an endless line of victims of Mishka's drug addiction ensues. But not one bear shed blood; A few odd killers keep things interesting, including a park ranger who taunts Martindale with a hilariously crude joke. She may not shoot well, but she has confidence. (American fans will no doubt be delighted to see Russell and Martindale reunite on screen, albeit in a Cold War sketch.)

While the jokes and gags abound, they rarely display the level of vocal response audiences expect from a film with the promise of a cocaine bear. Sure, people are freaking out and drawing a line on the bear's amputated leg, but there's nothing new or surprising about the results or the humor. Banks uses a flurry of musical cues to drive tonal shifts, but the film has few jumps or really bad cues, at least for those prepared for such things. The next half-joke about the detective (Isaiah Whitlock Jr.) adopting a fluffy white dog falls flat, and the Eddie and David storyline, while central, doesn't make much of an impact.

The scenes seem a little disjointed, which is not helped by the sharp cuts and poor editing. A one-shot flashback to show what happened a few minutes ago is inappropriate and unnecessary, an odd choice made all the more poignant by the explanation, "You saw what that bear did to her!" Likewise, a fluffy white dog appears in the vision of death, albeit slightly. If that's what it takes to sustain 95 minutes of action, maybe skip the storyline about some lost Austrian tourists.

Cocaine Bear's catchy complaint is proof enough that the project lacks self-awareness, but to what end? It's not crazy enough to qualify as a complete joke, and it's not smart enough to qualify as satire. Banks doesn't seem interested in directly referencing past exploitation films or burying dense cultural critique in dark action. Maybe that's asking too much for a movie called Cocaine Bear. Like the name, what you see is what you get.