COCAINE BEAR (2023)

COCAINE BEAR (2023)

Tagline: Get In Line

(Thriller, Comedy, Crazed Bear) [R]

I trusted you! The State of Tennessee trusted you! The United States of America, it trusted you!

This movie is based extremely loosely on the true story of a cocaine run that went bad which inadvertently leads to a bear ingesting cocaine. In real life, the bear died, in this movie it goes on a murderous rampage or else we would really have a movie here. In the vicinity of terror are a drug lord’s son, a drug dealer friend of his, cops, an ambulance crew and anyone just wandering the Tennessee forest that day.

 Okay – so there are a lot of things you can pick up from just watching the preview but I am going to cover what worked in this movie and what didn’t. One thing I can say is that because this was set in the 80s we ended up with yet another glorious 80s-laced soundtrack that gave this thing a wildly entertaining upbeat tone. This isn’t going to be a nostalgic movie right now for a lot of people, but I can see this someday becoming a go-to movie for some people that are into comedic violent nonsense. 

The other thing that worked for a large part of this is the dialog. We aren’t really given any backstories on anyone, but we are drawn into caring about them via well-crafted dialog and just the crazy things some of these characters run into. I won’t go into details, but I ended up wanting a LOT of these characters to live. The other thing that works is that the movie feels like it wraps up nicely. This doesn’t feel like the only story we might get out of this situation, but it comes across as being one complete story that wouldn’t need another installment to give us closure. The pacing is solid and I thought the cohesiveness of these scenes with basically 5 different stories going on at the same time is well done. This thing also has just enough gore to keep gore fans happy and not so much that it feels like a gimmick. I also really liked that this movie is very nonsensical. It reminds me of a lot of the b-movies people think they are skipping because they assume they are terrible but are actually the exact opposite of terrible. It even sneaks in an anti-drugs message which is never a bad thing. On top of all this, the bear looks fantastic. 

Acting wise this cast is actually fantastic. I am a huge Keri Russell (STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER) fan and she rarely does a film that sucks, so if you see her cast, you are pretty safe seeing that movie unless it’s from a garbage studio like A24. Needless to say, she is great in this as Sari. We also get an Alden Ehrenreich (SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY) citing and he is kind of the moral compass here and I really liked him as Eddie. O'Shea Jackson Jr. (GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS) is fantastic in this as Daveed. He’s a complicated character, but O’Shea kills it. The film also features the legendary Ray Liotta (HUBIE HALLOWEEN) who passed away last May. He is very solid here as Syd. This is an okay outing for Isiah Whitlock Jr. who plays Bob. Having said that even with all the talent in this movie, Christian Convery steals the show as Henry. I didn’t love all of his lines, but his presence is particularly strong in this especially given his age. He reminds me a lot of Cary from Super 8. Also, a movie that took place in the ’80s. 

So now we get to the negatives. One thing I didn’t really like is that I grew up in the 80s and we threw around F’bombs like confetti at the end of the super bowl, but in scripts, it’s super garish in stories like this. If you can’t look up a word a kid might actually say instead of profanity, it just tells the rest of us that you can’t write for crap. The other issue I had with this movie is a plot device that was completely unnecessary. I am not going to say what it is to avoid spoilers, but let’s just say we have one character in here that isn’t who they say they are and it presents as ill-conceived. The other problem is the actual direction. Elizabeth Banks just doesn’t appear to be trying anything new or creative here. Literally, anyone could have been directing this and gotten the same result. I loved PITCH PERFECT 2 which was also directed by her, but this felt like there was nearly zero real passion behind it. Maybe there was, we just don’t get to see it.  

Overall this isn’t going to be for everyone, but if you like over-the-top bonkers nonsense and don’t mind a bit of colorful language this is going to be a fun time. For me, this is a solid 5 out of 7.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.