An oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists, and teens converge on a Georgia forest where a giant black bear goes on a murderous rampage after unintentionally ingesting cocaine.
The movie “Cocaine Bear” brazenly states, “Inspired by True Events.” How, in the name of God, you might ask, could a story like this be true? And how come you never heard of it? To sum it up, in 1985, a former American narcotics officer and Kentucky-based drug smuggler named Andrew C. Thornton II was moving cocaine from Colombia to the U.S. via his Cessna 404 when he dropped 40 plastic containers of cocaine into the Knoxville, Tennessee wilderness, apparently because the plane was too heavy. He jumped out of the plane but died because his parachute failed to open. Several months later, a black bear, which became known as the Cocaine Bear, was found dead in the wilderness from allegedly overdosing on the cocaine Thornton dropped from his plane. And that’s it, the real-life story of the Cocaine Bear.
Enter Hollywood. They take the story and decide, “What if the bear ingested so much cocaine that it went crazy and started killing people?” And lo and behold, “Cocaine Bear: The Movie” was born. And let’s not forget; it was “Inspired by True Events.” I think it was an ingenious move by the filmmakers to create a monster movie from partially true banal events and create a story that, in a different universe, might have very well transpired differently.
After Andrew Thornton empties his plane full of drugs, our story picks up with various characters, some locals and some tourists. From Margo Martindale’s Ranger Liz and her potential love interest, Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s Peter, to O’Shea Jackson Jr.’s Daveed and his best friend Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich), whose drug dealer father, Syd (Ray Liotta), sends them into the wilderness to pick up as many cocaine bags as possible, to Keri Russell’s Sari and her young daughter Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) and her best friend, Henry (Christian Convery), who decide to ditch school for the day and go to the park instead and need rescuing after encountering our stoned furry friend, “Cocaine Bear” is 95 minutes of pure adrenaline, that very seldom lets up.
In many ways, “Cocaine Bear” is evocative of Steve Miner’s 1999 “Lake Placid,” another monster movie that took place in the wilderness and introduced us to a gigantic crocodile terrorizing residents of a lake in Maine. Both films utilize copious amounts of sly, ironic humor, and everyone involved seems to be having fun in front of and behind the camera. Like Leslie Nielsen in “The Naked Gun” movies, here, everyone plays their characters straightlaced, but it feels like they’re about to burst out laughing at any moment because of the sheer absurdity of the film, and I couldn’t blame them if they did. Elizabeth Banks’ assured direction guides the movie from its bloody opening to its sequel-proposing closing shots, showing just enough blood and carnage to keep you glued to the screen but never enough to turn your head away in disgust. Blending tongue-in-cheek dark humor and horror is no easy feat, but “Cocaine Bear” balances the components perfectly. Not a classic but a lot of fun.
Available on Digital HD April 14th, and on Blu-ray™ and DVD April 18th
