COCAINE BEAR – Review

As the forced hibernation of an often (in some parts of the US) ends lots of folks, besides the college kids, are making plans for the big “Spring break”. Aside from hitting the beaches, a good percentage will haul out the camping gear and make their journey into the woods to commune with Mother Nature. Oh, but what if “mama’ is not very welcome, especially those animal residents? These “humans vs. the wild” showdowns have been film thriller fodder for decades with the “king” JAWS, FROGS, NIGHT OF THE GRIZZLY, and DAY OF THE ANIMALS, And you remember how THE REVENANT grabbed a load of Oscars in 2015. Perhaps its most shocking scene pitted the story’s hero against a ferocious bear (the producers tagged as “Judy”). Now she was protecting her cubs, while the title star of this new flick, which is “inspired by true events” has a very different motivating “fuel”. This tale’s forest is truly frightening because it’s the lair of the COCAINE BEAR (sniff)!

This weird bit of recent legend begins in the hard-partying year of 1985 when a drug smuggler tosses dozens of duffel bags full of bars of blow out of his rapidly descending twin-engine plane (gotta’ lighten the load). Oh, but he still crashes in Tennessee, which sends a local narcotics officer on a mission. Bob (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) believes it’s connected to a St. Louis drug kingpin named Syd (Ray Liotta). And he’s right since Syd has assigned his best “muscle” Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) and Syd’s depressed son Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich) to head to Chattahoochee River National Park, home of Blood Mountain, to recover the “merch”. As the cop and the “crew” hit the trail, a good deal of the “product’ has been consumed by a rampaging black bear, about which the locals are clueless. That includes the park’s oblivious ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) and “nature advocate” Peter (Jesse Tyler Ferguson). Also in the dark is single mom Sari (Keri Russell), who heads off to her nursing job as her preteen daughter Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) joins her pal, the nervous Henry (Christian Convery) for a day of “hookey” in the nearby park to “paint the rainbow”. Throw in a trio of local toughs (a gang dubbed “The Duchamps”), and that over-medicated ursine predator could enjoy a tasty buffet, once he mellows out (if ever).

As you might’ve guessed, this is pretty much a raucous rowdy farce, which the talented cast fully embraces. However, a couple of the actors also get a chance to flex their dramatic “chops”, especially Russell as the struggling single mom who has to channel her own inner “mama bear’ to find her only child. She conveys the spirit of an average woman suddenly facing down her fears. And then there’s Jackson’s Daveed, who begins to see the despair of his henchman role as he must become a big brother to Ehrenreich’s Eddie, who’s going down for the “third time’ as the grief over his wife’s recent passing suffocates his spirit. Their adversary is the engaging Whitlock as Bob, the low-level cop determined to finally capture his “white whale”, Syd played with grit and gusto parodying his iconic gangster roles by the much missed Liotta in his final film performance. The comic MVP might be Martindale as the gruff, Yosemite Sam-like ranger with a short fuse and an itchy “hair trigger” temper. Ferguson also scores some laughs as the “tree hugger” who is ill-prepared for the full fury of the forest. Kudos also to the comic duo of Kristofer Hivju and Hannah Hoekstra as the Nordic hikers who are just in the wrong place at the wrong time (“Ve are lucky wit’ nature!”). Ditto for the “kids in peril”, Prince as the sassy, smart Dee Dee, and Convery as the “desperate-to-seem-cool” Henry.

With this, her third feature film, actress Elizabeth Banks is proving to be an equally talented director. She keeps the pace brisk, spacing the frantic action sequences with bits of character dialogue, giving us a chance to catch our breath before the beast strikes. Sure, this is almost a live-action cartoon, though closer in spirit to the old EC horror comics (this story would make Dr. Wertham’s eyeglasses shatter) like “Tales From the Crypt”, with several of the characters enduring Wile E. Coyote-style injuries, though they lack his “rejuvenating skills”. However, Banks doesn’t go for the splatter stuff too much, perhaps to make it a bit more “kid friendly” (but it’s really not a family flick). Those audiences jazzed by the high (oops) concept title are getting just what they want, but at around 95 minutes it begins to feel a bit forced. much like an extra-long SNL sketch stretched to feature length (I could almost hear Chevy’s “…land shark.”). Plus there’s a nagging feeling throughout that the producers really want this to be a “super-sized” and big-budget “midnight movie” to inspire a cult (maybe wearing big furs to showings), and trying to be “edgy” (really, ten-year-olds dropping “F-bombs”). But the “core demographic’ will be pleased with the CGI “mo-cap” critters, even as the star gets revived by the “nose candy’ much as Popeye did with the smell of spinach (I’m aging myself). So, if you’re in the mood for a campy horror comedy, the best “pick-me-up” may be the chemically chaotic COCAINE BEAR (so he snorts and s*#ts in the woods).

2.5 Out of 4

COCAINE BEAR is now playing in theatres everywhere