Cocaine Bear

 This review may contain spoilers!

Cocaine Bear is extremely loosely based on a true story, in that a drug runner dumped cocaine out of his plane near a small American midwest town. A black bear ate some of the cocaine and after a number of hours died. In the film though? The bear goes on a cocaine-induced rampage, killing near everyone it crosses along the way.

While I don't have a great many positive things to say about the film I was really impressed by the cinematography. The feature capitalises on some beautiful scenic shots and sets, while also making action sequences revolving around a CGI bear feel very dynamic.

 

Isiah Whitlock Jr., who played Bob, gives a very believable performance as the old grizzled detective; I think the 'detective having a dog back home he loved' story would have been a real write off if it wasn't for the heart Whitlock put in. Brooklynn Prince, who played Dee Dee, is one of the better young performers I've seen so far in 2023; Prince plays a snarky rebellious streak extremely well. Christian Convery, who played Henry, is a very charming goofball; I liked how Convery wasn't playing an inherently smart character yet he dealt some extremely witty delivery. Kristofer Hivju and Hannah Hoekstra, who played Kristoffer and Elsa respectively, really introduced us well to the start of the film and set a bar that was never really reached ever again; I just enjoyed the light-hearted way this pair approached playing a couple in love.

However, the best performance came from O'Shea Jackson Jr., who played Daveed. This is a performer who has really been up and coming for awhile now, and I love seeing him take a swing across a range of works. A feature like Cocaine Bear is perfect because anyone who shows up and puts the work in tends to shine and Jackson was doing that in spades. I really enjoyed the little quirks Daveed had, such as how protective he was of his outfit over the course of the movie. I often felt the misery he had over a ruined jacket was more heartfelt than how I felt about some character deaths. Jackson is really good at playing exasperated, the role is focused on getting a job done but he hates all the hoops he has to do to get there. Jackson also put in one hundred percent of the work to make the relationship between his and Ehrenreich's character seem like a solid friendship that needed healing.

I found going into Cocaine Bear I had this real expectation I'd be watching something irreverent and funny, maybe one of those films that's so bad it circles back around to being good. That's sadly not what this is. Ultimately, the film boils down to a comedy with heavy elements of a c-list 80s creature feature, think Sharknado but pulled back a little for general audiences. The comedy was the most surprising aspect of this to me, especially given the film is directed by Elizabeth Banks who has left a solid mark on comedies over the years. This whole film might make you give a wry chuckle a few times but there's nothing that will really get you cracking up. There are a few interweaving character stories but none of these characters really feel like the type to lead the film. In fact the film goes out of its way to construct the most generic character archetypes you could ever expect from a film like this - a single Mum looking for her two missing kids, an old school detective on his way out and a couple of flunkies for a drug lord. If the film had at least tried to find a character story worth telling in all this, it would at least have had some degree of story to it. But the entire plot devolves down to: greed is bad, sticking by your family and friends is good. I was also remarkably unimpressed by how the bear was used, often pumping out hollow, visceral kills that never served the film nor shocked the audience. The bar was so low with this, but there simply wasn't a script there to meet it.

The editing for this feature was ghastly, shots often lingered for long periods of time, which really took the punch out of the whole thing. I was really surprised all the flashback and dream sequences made it through the cutting room, they often ruined the entire flow of the feature and, in some cases, really undermined scenes. The special effects really boiled down to how good the kills looked and how good the main bear looked. The kills really varied in in quality but the thing I just couldn't stand was how awful the bear looked. The face often seemed unnatural, and there are multiple times where the movement just straight up didn't look like a bear whatsoever. It can be very tough simulating a real animal, especially in a film with a comedy budget; but the bear is literally what this film is about and seriously needed more work or a different approach to shooting it. The score for this film is outlandish, felt like it was really trying for the synthwave feel of b-list eighties features but missing the mark. Whatever noise we want to call this arrangement is a hot contender for probably the worst score we'll hear in 2023.

Keri Russell, who played Sari, is sort of positioned as the lead of this feature but is so unremarkable it becomes quite hard to tell; Russell has a lot of ability but the stereotypical single Mum who 'has to get her baby back' is nothing new here. Alden Ehrenreich, who played Eddie, should be asked to never fake cry on camera again because that was awful; Ehrenreich has to be phoning this one in because it might be his worst role to date. Ray Liotta, who played Syd, really hams it up a bit too much as the human antagonist of the film; it's a sad footnote for one of his last feature film performances. Margo Martindale, who played Ranger Liz, is an annoying character and performance; watching Martindale wildly play her character over the top started to wear thin after the first couple of scenes. Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who played Peter, is a genuinely forgettable character; the 'overly dedicated to park ranging' schtick just felt like a joke that went nowhere and wasn't acted well. Ayoola Smart, who played Officer Reba, was giving the most bland line delivery I could've imagined; Smart never once felt like a convincing police officer and she floundered in her scenes. Aaron Holiday, who played Kid, might just be my least favourite performance though; Holiday was all over the show and often felt like he was trying to be funny when he had no ability to do so.

No number of cute bear cubs covered in cocaine can get past the fact that this film is a real aimless piece of cinema. I would give Cocaine Bear a 1.5/10.