Cocaine Bear

I feel like there’s been a wave of movies that are intentionally very stupid, with the goal of being wild enough that they cross the threshold for people to love them. Commonly, they take the form of horror-comedies. And even more often, they don’t work on me. They usually contain a very specific style of humor I’d call “Internet chic”, taking me right out of the action as I imagine the tweet it came from. They like to bask in their own strangeness, making sure you realize just how random they’re being. And most fail to commit: they try to also hit you with some earnest, heartfelt moments, which end up feeling unearned because they’re constantly undermining the earnestness needed to set them up.

Cocaine Bear works around that last one by keeping the relationships and character arcs dead simple. There are a couple nice, real moments as a result. But Banks doesn’t dwell on them; she knows that’s not why we’re there. Which strangely gives them more weight. Maybe it’s because we’re not having our nose shoved in it?

And it’s sense of humor is just…odd. Somewhat over the top, but mostly it just zigs when you’re ready for it to zag. Also, they mix in some subtle, silly little jokes that are easy to miss, and don’t matter if you do. Little character quirks that are clearly meant to be entertaining. A personal favorite is Sari (Kerri Russel) quietly dropping some ice cubes into a glass of white wine.

I should probably give an outline of what this movie is about, huh? Because if you’re reading a review before seeing it, you want to know more than what’s in the trailer, albeit without spoilers.

Our inciting incident is a drug smuggling operation gone wrong, leading to a bunch of cocaine being dumped into the woods in a Georgian national forest. Our protagonists converge on the woods for various reasons, all unaware that a bear has been driven to extreme aggression by eating large amounts of the cocaine. The assemblage of characters is quite well navigated by Banks, as all of them have time to breathe. We split much of our time between two groups. There’s Sari, looking for her daughter Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) and friend Henry (Christian Convery), who wandered off to paint a waterfall. Then there’s Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) and Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich), who are trying to recover the cocaine on behalf of Syd (Ray Liotta). Not to mention some minor plot lines which weave between them, such as Ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) vs. the Duchamps, or the hiking couple who first encounter the bear.

We get some time devoted to establish each character in the first act, such that their behavior all fits into place, strange as it may be. There are some interesting and creative kills, and plenty of on-screen gore to match. The movie is over the top at a number of points, but knows it needs to pull back frequently in order to avoid oversaturating us. And it’s just plain gnarly, which is perfect.

The acting is all pretty damn good! Liotta especially stands out, as he’s the only one who’s character is powerful enough to ignore all the bullshit surrounding him. Syd feels like a traditional mobster, so it’s not surprise Liotta slipped in nicely. Which is especially great since this was one of his last films, given his death less than a year ago.

To put this all into context, Cocaine Bear isn’t a particularly good movie. It’s schlocky and shallow, quite random, and doesn’t do anything remarkable. But it’s an all around great time, destined to be a favorite background watch for years to come.