Directed by Elizabeth Banks
Year: 2023
Language: English
Shaun’s Score: 0.5/5 ★
Before Watching:
I often hear the same defense on repeat when I critique Blockbuster action/comedy: “But Shaun, [movie title] wasn’t intended to be clever or meaningful or well made, it was just supposed to be fun!” Believe it or not, I agree with you, and often these films do succeed in their goal of being not well made. But, a film (no matter how idiosyncratic it is) doesn’t get to set its own rubric—it might be very entertaining, but if all it’s shooting for is “stupid fun,” it doesn’t automatically get a score like Cinema Paradiso when it checks off that stupid fun box. Plenty of ridiculous, fun movies also manage to be great. I seldom deny a film’s entertainment value, but my scores are composite metrics of much more than just amusement. That all being said, Elizabeth Banks’s latest feature is a level of “stupid fun” hitherto unimaginable.
What does Cocaine Bear have in common with The Fabelmans?
They are both very, very bad.
They are both loosely based on true stories.
Well, it’s based on a real story in the way that SVB was based on real money. The “truth” here is that in 1985, an American black bear did actually stumble upon a massive amount of cocaine after a drug trafficker had a parachute snafu and didn’t live long enough to collect the load. The real bear died from an overdose, but Banks had the bravery to imagine what if it lived instead and went on a murderous rampage? The titular bear’s targets comprise an ensemble cast from Keri Russell to Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Margo Martindale to Ray Liotta (in a posthumous release). They all possess one-dimensional motivations (not unlike the addicted bear itself) to keep the plot limping along: Ray Liotta’s drug lord character needs to find the remaining cocaine to sell, Russell needs to find her lost daughter, Martindale’s park ranger is just trying to get into Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s pants, etc. Seriously, if she’s hot and bothered and needs more Uncle Mitchell, she should just drop by Take Me Out on Broadway…
Cocaine Bear isn’t just high, it’s high concept. The title tells you everything to expect from the movie, sitting alongside the likes of Sharknado (2013) or Snakes on a Plane (2006), or (arguably) Women Talking (2022). The film is one big, stimulated idea, glued together by a menagerie of smaller, stupider ideas. You need no context, no explanation—you barely need to be conscious to watch it. If you actually spend money on a ticket to a film titled Cocaine Bear, your expectations for the experience ahead of you cannot possibly be high, unless you are high. Will you see any acting worthy of any non-Razzie award, or will you just see a poorly animated bear snort blow off of a severed limb?
Even for a joke movie, Cocaine Bear is practically unbearable. I’m not sure how they possibly spent $30 million of budget when they seemingly couldn’t afford quality writing, acting, or effects. The cinematography is somehow… decent? But, there’s only so much that clever camera work can accomplish when there’s no actual plot meat for the audience to gnash into. The film’s trailer is like a TikTok with a cat in it—specifically engineered to trigger our recommendation algorithms. A movie about animals and drugs? What could Americans possibly love more? If you’re looking for modern comedy horror, M3GAN is much more worth your time. If you’re just looking to see Paddington go all Donald Trump Jr., then fine, get in line.
Cocaine Bear was released in the United States in February, and can now be seen in theaters worldwide.
After Watching:
Honestly, Cocaine Bear could have benefitted from going harder in either direction. With a little more effort (and potentially fewer characters), it could have been more clever and suspenseful. With a little less effort (and again, fewer characters), it could have been raunchier and funnier. For a B-movie that is marketed as absurd and hilarious, it was disappointingly not that funny. The violence is sanitized via cut-aways, with the camera snapping from victims being dragged away directly to their severed limbs flying at us. Come on, you aren’t even trying to sneak in under PG-13—bring us some real action. I’ve seen grizzlier violence on United Airlines.1
The best sequence in the film was the ambulance debacle, and even that was overly censored. We didn’t get to see the comedic tango of the bear sharing the cramped passenger compartment with our favorite Ikea employee (“the Fresh Prince of Bel-Bear”), whose comedic skills were wasted in such a quick role. In fact, all of the characters were flimsy, with many of them only existing for ridiculous one-off jokes like Alden Ehrenreich saying “penne” like Forrest Gump says “Jenny.” The adorable police dog grows old quickly, getting more screen time than some humans. Even Ray Liotta feels stale, spending one of the last films of his incredible career looking as haggard as his own character at the end of Goodfellas (1990). Rest in peace, big man.
Again, what you see is what you get here. I certainly never expected to hear the sentence “Cocaine Bear, leave Malala alone!” uttered at the Academy Awards, but that’s just another example of something quotidian in today’s world that would be absolutely ludicrous for somebody from 2019 to hear. Banks somehow banked $78 million in box office sales to date, so clearly the movie is a hit with some people. But if you ask me, Cocaine Bear just blows.
United, much like Elizabeth Banks, apparently needs people to “Volunteer as Tribute.”