Cocaine Bear Cocaine Bear

* * * 1/2 - 2023 ‧ Thriller/Dark comedy ‧ 1h 31m)

In 1985 investigators learned that around 40 kilograms of cocaine had been dropped by air into a forest in Georgia and that several million dollars' worth had been consumed by a local black bear with fatal results. That is fatal for the bear which as far as anyone knows did not go on a violent coke-fuelled rampage prior to its untimely demise. But that oversight will be corrected in this left-field project from director Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect 2) starring the late Ray Liotta as an unfortunate smuggler alongside "performance capture artist" Allan Henry in what promises to be one of the great bear roles. Opens February 24.

Cast: Ray Liotta Keri Russell Matthew Rhys

Release date: 23 February 2023

Official Trailer

Review

*** IMDB
0% TOMATOMETER
0% AUDIENCE SCORE

Review by Leigh Paatsch - HeraldSun

High on its own supply of roar power

If you must see one movie this year where a burly, furry woodlands mammal huffs a half-tonne of high-end narcotics and starts indiscriminately chasing down, and chewing up, redneck mountain folk, then it just has to be Cocaine Bear.

Not since Snakes on a Plane has a cinematic endeavour delivered so fully, and yet, so specifically upon everything promised by its title.

There is absolutely no need to activate any spoiler-alert sirens with this particular production.

In less than three minutes after the opening scene, the mathematical equation of cocaine + bear is complete. A viewer's mind will have no further work to do for the rest of this motion picture.

You are then free to relax and explore the fascinating possibilities of a world where a foraging forest creature does a boatload of blow, and will do anything to get its paws on more and more of that deliciously addictive Colombian icing sugar.

You may have heard elsewhere that this movie is based on a true story. That is stretching the truth a little bit. True story-adjacent might be a better way of putting it.

(Come on now: if you intend showing up to a movie called Cocaine Bear expecting gritty documentary realism, you're better off staying home and setting fire to a $20 bill instead.)

The tawdry tale told by Cocaine Bear unfolds smack-bang in the middle of the 1980s, where a misdelivered airdrop of prime uncut cocaine has landed smack-bang in the middle of a national park in the US state of Georgia.

An inquisitive bear (who we shall refer to as The Bear) happens upon the powdery payload, takes a hefty sniff, and takes an instant liking to the stuff.

Understandably, in its newly enhanced state The Bear exhibits a tendency to get quite aggressively territorial about access to this spectacular stash.

In other words, anyone who dares step on The Bear's turf is brawlin' for a maulin'.

Without giving too much away, certain human beings who will be paying a visit to the park while The Bear re-enacts its favourite scenes from Scarface may not be returning home this lifetime.

Among those awaiting their date with fate are a mother (Keri Russell) looking for her school-skipping daughter (Brooklynn Prince); a scuzzy drug lord (the late Ray Liotta in one of his final screen roles) and his dimwitted associates (Alden Ehrenreich and O'Shea Jackson); a pistol-packing park ranger (Margo Martindale) and her enviro-conscious boyfriend (Jesse Tyler Ferguson); and the occasional clueless foreign backpacker.

There is not very much this endearingly down-market action-comedy hybrid does wrong across a mercifully quick running time of 90 minutes. The movie can get quite gory at times, and very funny at other moments.

As for The Bear, well, while it never quite declares its true colours as either a villain or a hero, a late-breaking revelation and a last-minute confrontation leaves you hoping the worst that awaits is a long-term hibernation in rehab.

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