Lamar Reviews - "Cocaine Bear" (Airdate 3/3/2023)

Lamar Reviews - "Cocaine Bear" (Airdate 3/3/2023)

There are some titles that need no trailer, just the name itself beckons you to the theater. No matter what anybody says, you, have, to, see it!! A few that come to mind are: There Will Be Blood, I Spit on Your Grave, Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby, and of course, Snakes on a Plane. As soon as I heard Cocaine Bear, I knew I was in. When you mix cocaine and a bear, something has got to be happening.

When a movie says “based on a true story” that could mean anything. It could follow the facts as close as possible, almost to the point of a documentary. Or, as in this case, it could mean, yes there was some cocaine that came from a plane and hit the ground, and, there was a bear that found it and ate it. But past that, the story is pure fiction, but great fiction it is. Instead of dying like the bear did in real life, the movie bear eats it, snorts it, and goes berserk on it! Two kids, Dee Dee and Henry, played by Brooklynn Prince and Christian Convery skip school to go on a hike where of course they encounter the murderous bear. Dee Dee’s mom, played by Keri Russell enlists the help of Ranger Liz, who is played by Margo Martindale, to help her find the kids. Let me go on record as saying Margo Martindale is one of the greatest character actors of all time. There is no role she cannot take to its highest level. The cocaine didn’t just appear, it belongs to a big-time drug dealer named Syd, played by Ray Liotta. This was his last movie before his death.

The plot, such as it is, consists mom and ranger searching for kids, drug dealers searching for cocaine, police officer Bob, played by Isiah Whitlock Jr., searching for the drug dealers, and a cocaine fueled Apex predator killing as many of them as it can, in the most bloody, horrific, and hilarious ways possible!

It is a very quick 1 hour and 35 minutes, Rated R for bloody violence and gore, drug content and language throughout.

This movie is not for everybody, some with have a great time and laugh continuously, and others will hate every minute. I know this because I never stopped laughing, and Carla never stopped shushing me because people being torn from limb to limb by a killer bear is not funny!

Elizabeth Banks, who directed the movie, knew exactly what she was doing, and the audience she was doing it for. The violence is so over the top and bloody it is cartoonish, and is definitely played for laughs. If you can’t see the humor in a bear tearing of a man’s leg and then snorting the cocaine residue off of it, this movie is not for you.

The title of the movie is both an invitation and a disclaimer. It is truth in advertising, you know what you are walking into. If you go to a movie titled Cocaine Bear and walk out complaining about the lack of a multi-layered script and a non-linear narrative, that’s your fault. And maybe on your way home you might want to stop by an urgent care and get that stick pulled out.

This by no means is what you would call a “good” movie, but if you think what I have described sounds like something you would find humorous, then you are going to have a great 95 minutes.

My Score: 4 Solid Budweisers.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.