The original Cocaine Bear died in Georgia sometime between September 11, 1985 and December 23, 1985 after ingesting air-dropped Colombian cocaine. This true crime event inspired horror comedy “Cocaine Bear” (2023), actor turned director Elizabeth Banks’ third feature and writer Jimmy Warden’s second. The film is also set in 1985. The action unfolds in Knoxville, Tennessee, St. Louis, Missouri and on Blood Mountain (yes, it exists) in Georgia’s Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. When a drug smuggler’s air drop goes wrong, a diverse cast of characters (read in Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update’s Stefon’s voice: cops, drug dealers, nurse/single mom, kids, teen punks, a park ranger, a wildlife activist, paramedics, bears and a lapdog) with varied agendas converge on the territory of the titular American black bear.
I wanted to see “Cocaine Bear” as soon as I knew it existed. It is Ray Liotta’s last role. It is set during my favorite pop culture era and is a favored genre. A woman directed it. It was better than some of my favorite horror movies because one time it got me to scream even though I could see the kill coming and thought that it did not make sense given what happened before (“The Shining” moment, no ax required). Logic be damned. It was hilarious from the opening scene when clumsiness takes someone out. It is a film better suited for big screen viewing with an audience. I was lucky enough to have a good one. We were trading jokes before the movie started-all strangers, true fun lovers looking for a good time. The movie theater was down to a single late morning showing per day.
“Cocaine Bear” was better than I expected. Dare I say that it was better than “Air” (2023) and just beneath “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” (2023) in terms of depicting the eighties as a living breathing era without being intrusive or smug. The film feels as if it could be simultaneously a movie from and about that era without being precious about it unlike Todd Haynes’ work. Banks and Warden are a great team, and they gave me everything that “Body at Brighton Rock” (2019) lacked. The costumes were pitch perfect. A preteen girl’s room is decorated with posters of musicians like Duran Duran, Madonna, Adam Ant and Billy Idol, and it felt authentic. Even Christian Convery, who plays Henry, the best friend of the preteen girl and neglected son of a single father, feels transported as if he could be a child star from that time. Banks includes a montage of War on Drugs commercials and archival footage from news reports. The film is seamless.
People are so carried away with the gonzo premise of “Cocaine Bear” that I do not think that they appreciate how ambitious and well-written it is. If you focus on how the story is crafted, each scene has a hook of dialogue or visual cue that links it to the next. There are no hanging threads. The sprawling nature of the characters is akin to Robert Altman levels of ambition. The filmmakers give a complete rich story line to each character, occasionally defying archetypes, even ones without names, where we get a sense of their past, fears, hopes and dreams. The average or even above-average film fails at giving a complete snapshot of its complete cast to make viewers invested in each character’s well-being. Normally I get impatient with humans in monster movies and only root for them to becomes food. While delighting in the carnage, the filmmakers strike a balance between cheering each kill and empathizing with the characters without spoiling the mood.
There are buckets of blood, but until the denouement, Banks is judicious in what she shows on screen, and many of the kills are implied though the victims’ screams may make you feel otherwise. Remember while I find the gore tame, the less avid moviegoer may not feel the same because I could be desensitized. Banks also makes you feel as if you are seeing everything by showing everything leading up to the attack and the gruesome aftermath. There are plenty of detached body parts flung around, but the actual moment of impact is usually relegated to the edges of the frame. She is less delicate when humans are the ones inflicting the damage whether it is an unfair fight, which was terrifically choreographed with a blend of humor and real stakes, or death by road rash. Banks is deft at embracing each genre without sacrificing the comedic or horror elements.
When I was a kid, I loved movies like “Piranha” (1978), “Alligator” (1980), “Dogs” (1976), “Orca” (1977), “Willard” (1971) and naturally “Jaws” (1975)—also a bunch of killer bee movies whose names I cannot recall, but I do not remember them ever being funny, but with a touch sadness. Banks mixes the absurd innocence and wonder with the bear’s innate lethal nature from the opening credits as her blood-soaked face stops to stare in wonder at a butterfly. Towards the denouement, I started to fear that the filmmakers had wandered into “Godzilla” (1998)—Matthew Broderick—territory with making me feel bad for wanting a horror movie but think of cocaine to the bear like spinach to Popeye. It is not real life. It is a movie. While my brain went to how are we going to create a bear rehab, the filmmakers are like, “No, it is fine.” Banks has explicitly said in interviews that she is on the side of nature so I guess cocaine is too. Nature cannot hurt nature, and cocaine is natural. The titular bear is telling human beings to back off and let her have a good time. It is her property. I could not quite suspend disbelief and would still urge bears to not do drugs. Also the CGI quality varies, but you will adjust.
All art (yes, “Cocaine Bear” is art) falls in four categories: heaven, hell, pre and post fall. This film is set in a post-fall world where families are fractured and fail to recognize how unnatural their conditions are. Henry has a little monologue, which I equated with catharsis at releasing anger on his inadequate father on a safer substitute. Also the government officials are mostly self-serving and incompetent. The only good government official does not belong to this hostile environment though the filmmakers give him an old-fashioned, Western gravitas. The drug dealers are better men, including reliable fathers, than the off-screen ones.
The editing is brilliant. There are these cute flashes that transports us from the scene and into a storyteller’s imagination. For example, single mom Sari (Americans’ Keri Russell, who shares no scenes with her on screen husband spy from that series, Matthew Rhys, who has an unrecognizable, unhinged cameo) imagines her boyfriend. A juvenile delinquent pictures himself with his friends unaware of their current state with Banks mixing his blissful imagination with his friends’ gruesome reality with a jovial dissonant snapshot scene digression. The soundtrack suits every moment’s tone, which “Air” cannot boast.
The acting is better than necessary. “Modern Family” Jesse Tyler Ferguson plays against type in a role that could be forgettable, but he acts to the tips of his toes by trembling in terror. O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Ice Cube’s kid) nails it as the drug dealer with hands and heart. No one would expect that Game of Thrones’ Kristofer Hivju could turn into a sniveling mess. Margo Martindale gets some throwaway, straight man funny lines that your ears could blink and miss them. Only Alden Ehrenreich has trouble keeping up with the zaniness.
“Cocaine Bear” is a quintessential American masterpiece! If it does not sound appealing, stay away.
