Cocaine Bear puts the high in high-concept.
If you’ve ever watched Jaws and thought, “this would be even better if the shark was high on cocaine”, then Cocaine Bear is the fever dream of a film you didn’t know you needed. Loosely inspired by the bizarre true story of a black bear that ingested a duffel bag of dropped cocaine in the 1980s, Elizabeth Banks’ film takes that premise and sprints full-tilt into chaos, embracing the absurdity with gleeful abandon.
At its best, Cocaine Bear is an audacious blend of creature feature carnage and Coen-esque crime caper, revelling in over-the-top gore and slapstick horror. The titular bear is a rampaging, coke-fuelled force of nature, tearing through an eclectic cast of characters, each of whom is dealing with their own ridiculous problems before finding themselves on the wrong end of a 500-pound predator with a penchant for powdered thrills. There’s a desperate drug smuggler (Alden Ehrenreich) and his weary associate (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), a no-nonsense park ranger (Margo Martindale), a harried mother (Keri Russell) searching for her missing daughter, and even the late, great Ray Liotta in one of his final roles, clearly having a blast as a ruthless kingpin who just wants his stash back.
When the film leans into its horror-comedy strengths, it’s a riot. There are moments of outrageous, blood-splattered spectacle – maulings that play out with the timing of an especially mean-spirited Looney Tunes short. Banks directs with a clear fondness for the B-movie mayhem, and the film is at its most exhilarating when it embraces the sheer lunacy of its premise. The bear itself, rendered through impressively expressive CGI, is both terrifying and hilarious in equal measure, veering from primal menace to deranged buffoonery depending on how much of its illicit supply it’s inhaled.
That said, Cocaine Bear occasionally struggles to balance its tones. There’s a sharp contrast between the film’s more cartoonish excesses and its moments of unexpected brutality, and the script doesn’t always find the right equilibrium. Some subplots meander without ever paying off in a satisfying way, and while the cast are game for the madness, the film sometimes loses momentum in its attempts to juggle multiple character arcs when all anyone really wants is more of the bear doing exactly what the title promises.
Still, for all its unevenness, Cocaine Bear never lacks for entertainment value. It delivers exactly what it advertises – a wild, bloody, utterly ridiculous rampage – and does so with enough energy and sheer commitment to make up for its more inconsistent moments. It’s not quite as finely tuned as it could be, but when it’s on a roll, it’s deliriously fun. If you’re in the mood for something unapologetically absurd, where the laws of nature and narcotics collide in the most violent and hilarious ways possible, Cocaine Bear is worth the trip.
