A wild bear eating cocaine doesn’t seem like a true story, but then again stranger things have happened. While the real story is funny, turning it into a horror comedy film is even better. Cocaine Bear is not going to win any Awards, but it will entertain you. The ridiculousness of the story will keep you laughing all the way to the end and that’s the brilliance of this movie. A movie doesn’t have to be great to entertain you. But some of the best movies we watch over and over are not really that good in the grand scheme of filmmaking, but as long as the film entertains you then it’s worth watching. I can’t critique this film the same way I do serious dramas, but I will say that I very much enjoyed it and even though it’s probably just 6 or 7 the way we grade movies at That Nerd Show, it doesn’t matter because it was still worth seeing in the theater.
The real story is about a cocaine drop that went bad and some of the kilos got lost in a state park where a black bear, being curious, ate cocaine and went on a violent rampage. Yes, the film takes some liberties and gives moviegoers some glorious deaths, but it doesn’t have to be entirely factual for it to be a good movie. The movie opens up with a drug dealer dropping duffel bags of cocaine out of plain while high as a kite and then accidentally gets tossed from the plane, unconscious to where he can’t open up his parachute.
And that’s where all the cocaine gets lost. Now the adventure begins because it’s a race against time with the drug dealers trying to recover 14 million dollars worth of cocaine, a couple of kids who decided to skip school and get lost in the State Park, thieving teenagers who are up to no good, and a park ranger who does more harm with her gun than actually saving anybody. This film has some of the best deaths on the big screen, in some ways you actually root for the bear. Plus, this was one of Ray Liotta’s funniest performances. Sadly, it’s his last performance as he passed away last year, but he went out with a bang with this hilarious movie. Directed by Elizabeth Banks, she gives us a great B-style horror film that keeps us laughing with fantastic deaths. Yes, it’s not Shakespeare, it’s not some inspiring drama or an allegory about the drug trade. It’s just a funny movie about a bunch of people trying to escape a bear high on cocaine against the backdrop of the 1980s War on Drugs. We don’t need to know the backstories of all the characters. There’s no great lesson to learn from this movie. It simply entertains and that’s all it needs to do. There are a lot of great horror comedies that keep us entertained from Shaun of the Dead to Cooties to the Evil Dead movies. I see Cocaine Bear becoming a cult classic. Maybe the movie really isn’t that good, but it’s funny as hell and I guarantee you’ll watch it again
