Cocaine Bear Review: Moments of Fun, But Not Quite Satisfying

Ken Jones, OnScreen Blog Chief Film Critic

Every once in a while, a gonzo movie idea springs up that captures everyone’s attention for how absurd and off the wall it is. Sometimes these break through into the mainstream, like Snakes on a Plane, sometimes they are merely a cult classic, like Hobo with a Shotgun or even Sharknado. The title pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Cocaine Bear is the latest movie to join that fraternity. 

Unfortunately, Cocaine Bear is just a middling film that never quite comes together satisfactorily. 

Based (very loosely) on a true story, Cocaine Bear is exactly what the title says: a movie about a bear that takes a bunch of cocaine. Apparently, this actually happened in 1985, where drug runners dumped their cargo of cocaine over the woods of Tennessee and a bear was found dead with a stomach full of cocaine.

Unfortunately, a bear that overdoses on cocaine is not a very compelling story, so the bear in this movie ingests copious amounts of cocaine and then goes rampaging through a National Forest in north Georgia, terrorizing several people. Among them are a couple of men dispatched to retrieve the cocaine: Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) and Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich), a Tennessee detective named Bob (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) investigating their boss Syd (the late Ray Liotta), a nurse named Sari (Keri Russell) searching for her daughter Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) and her friend Henry (Christian Convery) who skipped school together, and Ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) who oversees the park.

Cocaine Bear is a mixture of comedy, man vs. nature horror, and some action. All of these are a mixed bag.

The movie opens with two unsuspecting foreign hikers who happen to cross paths with the Cocaine Bear, which is pretty entertaining. It also sets the stage for the worst of the violence perpetrated by the bear taking place offscreen, with the occasional limb being tossed into frame for comedic effect.

With the man vs. nature aspect, the bear stalks a group of people hiding out in the park ranger’s office, and it is heard walking on the roof; but then it attacks from a place that is not from above, which is supposed to be played, again, for both laughs and thrills, but comes across as completely defying logic because it is just done for a jump scare. 

It is a movie you want to laugh at, to throw caution to the wind, and to just go along with it for a crazy ride; however, its narrative flow hampers the experience. 

There is a distinct feeling that the movie was either heavily edited with an upcoming unrated version that is wildly more entertaining, or it is just a movie that is a bit scattershot, throwing a lot of punches where only about half of them land. The relationship between Daveed and Eddie, the two men sent to recover the cocaine, starts off funny because one is an emotional mess after the recent loss of his wife, but their scenes become repetitive after a fashion.

As for the bear itself, it operates in a few different modes.

There are a few times it goes berserker and tears someone apart (offscreen). Other times it is on a rampage, chasing people up a tree. At other times it acts like it is out of its mind and oblivious to the things or people around it. And then there is one scene where it simply passes out on top of someone for an extended period.

It also seems to be able to cover incredible amounts of ground and appear in disparate parts of the park in a very short amount of time.

Frankly, I wish they had made the film more outrageous and the bear either more vicious or more absurd in its behavior. If the dial for this movie could be turned up to 11, they probably only turn the dial up to about a 6 or 7 in terms of how out there it is.

These types of movies are often one-note jokes and the mileage can vary. For me, while it had moments that were funny and entertaining in its ridiculous premise, it is not consistently strong in any aspect to truly shine, either as a creature feature or as just a bonkers gonzo comedy that you can turn your brain off for and just be entertained.

It is a movie that has a great premise and the potential to be a truly great experience, but it is ultimately a movie that does not quite know what it really wants to be and has a limited ceiling because of it.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

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