- Title: Cocaine Bear
- IMDb: link
Very Loosely based on a true story of a bear who ingested cocaine dropped in the Tennessee wilderness, Cocaine Bear is your typical over-the-top thriller as the crazed bear goes wild in the park hunting for more cocaine where potential victims wander around unaware of the danger. When the film focuses on the bear and its rampage, there’s plenty of bloody fun to be had. When it gets lost in the various stories of characters, it does stall at times.
The large cast offers plenty of victims for our cocaine-fueled monster (even if it’s too easy to guess probable survivors). We get Keri Russell as as single mother looking for her daughter (Brooklynn Prince) and her best friend (Christian Convery), a drug kingpin (Ray Liotta), his grieving son (Alden Ehrenreich) and drug dealer (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) searching for the missing drugs, a pair of European hikers (Kristofer Hivju and Hannah Hoekstra), three local hooligans, the park ranger (Margo Martindale) and wilderness rep (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), and a happy-go-lucky cop (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) far out of his jurisdiction.
While the story of a bear eating a large amount of cocaine is true, the human characters and events in the park, and the bear’s murderous rampage, are all fictionalized and exaggerated by screenwriter Jimmy Warden for comedic effect. In her directorial debut, Elizabeth Banks delivers a film exactly as it was marketed. As long as you aren’t turned off by the blood and spare body parts flying around from time to time, Cocaine Bear is the kind of dumb wacky fun you might enjoy (even if it feels notably restrained in places to earn its R-rating). The film is also notable for being Ray Liotta’s final film, which offers one final piece of odd trivia to this bizarre tale.
Watch the trailer
