Cocaine Bear

Cocaine Bear

An oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converge in a Georgia forest where a 500-pound black bear goes on a murderous rampage after unintentionally ingesting cocaine.

  • Released: 2023-02-24
  • Runtime: 95 minutes
  • Genre: Comedy, Crime, Thrillers
  • Stars: Keri Russell, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Alden Ehrenreich, Ray Liotta, Margo Martindale, Kristofer Hivju, Christian Convery, Brooklynn Prince, Kahyun Kim, Scott Seiss, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Ayoola Smart, Aaron Holliday, Conor Lambert, Leo Hanna, Oisín Nolan, Christopher Livingston, Matthew Rhys, Chloe Harris
  • Director:
 Comments
  • nitinnewemail - 29 June 2024
    Absolute juxtaposed, apex predator on a high!
    This has to be most out of concept movie and yet you can't leave it unfinished. Juxtaposed idea of bear on cocaine..an apex predictor on high could be lethal. Gore and that too so much wowen in comedy structure passes just with me. I can't say no more how would it look to you or them but I have had good time going through this movie. What a concept and at times it left be baffling over turn of events. And it seems possible that something of this sort must have taken place somewhere in Columbia or Mexico. Bear upended while forest as cocaine would waste a man who in turn upends whole society. A gazing timepass and absolutely top notch cinematography.
  • muratmihcioglu - 19 March 2024
    Starts off really well. But ends in an undecided fashion.
    I had no idea Elizabeth Banks was into directing I know for a fact that for productions of this caliber it is quite impossible what exact quality we can attribute to the director herself, as the DP and others may be holding the reins when it comes to crucial stuff.

    That said, the movie overall gave me the feeling that Banks had preferred to take the angle of a "mother" as her wheel park when balancing the various characters whose paths cross with the cocaine bear in one way or the other. Yeah, it's that mother's story arc that is supposed to matter the most, also as the ending suggests.

    I liked how the supporting characters were portrayed by the actors playing them. We had some sort of Pulp Fiction Samuel L. Jackson, a man who would eventually become better than what his drug dealing career dictates. We also had that cop-to-be-wasted, a man of duty who would die on the hill he believed the most, almost literally.

    The CGI was great. I'll say that again: The CGI was great. And I'm saying that to emphasize the fact that "great" doesn't necessarily mean "overwhelming" or "abundant". It was used where needed, to the extent that it was needed.

    Beforehand, I'd thoght they'd have some shot from the bear's POV, enabling us to make a contrast between how it saw the world before and after being exposed to cocaine. Interestingly and maybe sadly, we never get to experience the animal's own, instinctive angle. Though the film never falls so low to match it with Sharknado's sharks, the story is kinda less convincing than Jaws as the real-life story that inspired it proves the animal could not live long with that toxic dust in its system.

    I did enjoy Cocaine Bear and never even thought of skipping through scenes till the final half hour. The ending was the most uncalled-for segment in the whole film. No, it wasn't bad - it just did not make perfect sense of the multiple storylines.

    With such movies where comedy is employed along with horror and even gore, there's always this problem of "meaning". What is it that we are supposed to value here? Is human life expendable, hence the death scenes should be laughed at? Or, is all life, including that of the bear, worth of respect, hence we should identify with every single character and watch the scenes at the edge of our seats as we deeply feel for them?

    This one was a mixed bag in that sense. There wasn't much to suggest heavenly justice was there to determine who'd live and who'd die how. Except for the Pulp Fiction Samuel L. Jackson storyline, that is.

    I appreciaed the fact that they'd taken tha path of not updating the story and sticking with mid-80s when using, embellishing and even abusing the idea. At times it felt like a forgotten movie from the 80s, which is intended to serve as a compliment.

    My gut feeling says that among the scenes they shot and the probable ways to tie them up together lies an even better version of this, one that could push a hard 8, but with this final cut the best I can do is a 7.