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Cocaine Bear (R16, 95 mins) Directed by Elizabeth Banks ***½
Knowing that Cocaine Bear was inspired by actual events just makes the film even more of a hoot.
Yes, in 1985, somewhere over a particularly foresty bit of Tennessee, a drug smuggler by the name of Andrew Thornton really did jettison 40 kilos of cocaine and then died when his parachute failed to open.
And yes, the cocaine really was eaten by a black bear. Which is about where the “inspired by actual events” part of Cocaine Bear ends – and a whole lot of blood and drug-drenched fun takes over.
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Writer Jimmy Warden takes those scant facts and spins them into a tale of a desperate drug smuggler, his hapless accomplices – one of whom is his son, some teenage wannabe crims, two park rangers and a mother looking for her missing daughter, all converging on the patch of land the disorientated and unpredictable bear has staked out.
We learn early on, in true Jaws style, that this bear might kill anyone it meets, especially if it gets a whiff of coca. And with most of the smuggler’s haul still dangling from trees all over the rohe, there’s a lot of that going around.
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Stache (Aaron Holliday) and Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) encounter the eponymous Cocaine Bear.
Director Elizabeth Banks is an astute comedian and actor herself. And she has Pitch Perfect 2 and the 2019 Charlie’s Angels reboot on her directing CV.
In Cocaine Bear, Banks absolutely nails the mid-1980s B-grade horror vibe and then mashes it with a goofball high-school teen comedy. If there was an R-rated episode of Wet Hot American Summer that featured a killer ursus, it would have looked a lot like Cocaine Bear. And yes, that is a huge recommendation.
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O’Shea Jackson Jr., Ayoola Smart, Alden Ehrenreich and the late, great Ray Liotta are among the strong bench of actors who help sell every gag in Cocaine Bear.
Cocaine Bear is a pile of fun. A few gags needed some better choreography and a tighter edit to really wring all the laughs out, but even that seems to be in tribute to the teen movies and schlock horrors that have inspired this film. With Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr. and the great Isiah Whitlock Jr. (The Wire) all featuring in a very strong bench of actors, Cocaine Bear has enough talent on screen to sell every gag.
And while I know Cocaine Bear is not the film we will remember the great Ray Liotta for, I heard that he enjoyed working on it. Once you watch it, you’ll find that easy to believe.
Cocaine Bear is now screening in cinemas nationwide.
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