Cocaine Bear

Cocaine Bear is based on the true story of a drug deal gone wrong and a bear sticking its nose into a package of cocaine, getting high and dying. And this film is a classic case of a writer taking the threads of the story and running with it for all its worth and to destruction.

It opens well with a dealer high on plane thrashing about to Jefferson Starship’s Jane, knocking himself senseless, then out of the plane and into a forest where the bear has got hold of the stuff. This was preceded by two European trekkers noticing a bear acting strangely, when they are attacked ensuring blood and body parts all over the place. The tone of the film is therefore set.

From there writer Jimmy Warden and director Elizabeth Banks, set off a few strands the include dealers looking for the drugs, dim teenagers, a worried parent looking for her offspring, a detective and a ranger trying to impress a wildlife expert. Their adventures eventually see them all come together in one place for a showdown between bear, dealers, cops, teens, parents and children.

Clearly played for laughs, there are some, as each group has their piece of the action and clash with the bear ensuring that the human cast gets smaller. Not that anyone will be that worried about any of them save for the just turned teens Henry (Christian Convery) and Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) who are terrific with a wonderful rapport.

The gore is plentiful but the laughs dry up as the film goes on. The villains are semi comedy, with a capacity for great violence. But not that villainous until the late Ray Liotta comes back into the film adding a required mean streak to the proceedings. This was his final film and audiences can at least take away that he is the best thing in it.

On a technical level the realisation of the bears, is very good and there are some terrific scenes, which include the bear’s attack on an ambulance. The music nicely places the film in the 80’s with some familiar songs of the era.

And as the film goes on, especially towards the end I tended to have some sympathy for the bear that was minding its own business, probably doing what it does regularly in the woods only to be thrust into the human world because of its greed and insatiable capacity for recreational drugs.