“Don't worry. Bears can't climb trees.” Henry (Christian Convery)
“Of course they can!” Peter (Jessie Tyler Ferguson)
Each year at this time, I am furiously trying to predict the Oscar winners for 2022 at the 2023 ceremony. Although this year the top contenders are so close in quality, I’m having difficulty guessing the winners. Not hard at all is my conclusion that Cocaine Bear is the worst movie since the last Oscars. Based on a mid-80’s real tale from Tennessee, the splatter comedy is almost as incoherent as it is absurd.
Some will defend it as a satire of the’80’s drug-scare scene, and to an extent they’re right. Based on the true event of a pilot’s throwing out of his plane cakes of cocaine, Cocaine Bear should have jettisoned its script as well.
The quote above exemplifies the wittiest moments of an otherwise sophomoric exchange, whose humor relies on the unhumorous universal knowledge that bears do climb, and fast. Even Tom Brokaw’s newscast about the duffel full of coke-cakes seems irrelevant. One of Ray Liotta’s final turns as a Missouri drug dealer is meaningless banter.
As various semi-colorful characters like mothers, cops, and wardens try to capture a mama bear berserk from ingesting that abandoned blow, various episodes with the bear are macabre aggressions like dragging someone by the face from the back of an ambulance to dragging hikers into the bushes to have bear’s appetite for cocaine satisfied by licking the dust from the bodies. Fingers get blown off and intestines eaten, all in the name of comedy.
The bear cubs, liberally caked in “booger sugar,” are just a little less outrageous than the two kids (Brooklynn Prince and Christian Convery) ingesting heaps of Erythroxylon Coca while dropping f-bombs like the cakes from the sky. All this absurdity is from director Elizabeth Banks, whose previous Pitch Perfect 2 and Charlies Angels didn’t bode well either for comedy.
Looking beyond the silliness, we can guess at the allegorical underpinnings of ‘80’s cocaine warnings and the importance of family, be it human or, as in the case of the bear, animal. As the film emphasizes the vacuity of the players and allows underage kids to drop f-bombs, the comedy/horror provides for hard-core horror fans some gruesome shots of mutilated bodies and not-so-scary setups, none of which should qualify this film for even a measure of the genre’s respect.
Cocaine Bear is a cautionary tale about excessive drug use and encouragement for loyalty and devotion to friends and relatives. Other than that, even 80 for Brady looks good.
Cocaine Bear
Director: Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect)
Screenplay: Jimmy Warden (The Babysitter: Killer Queen)
Cast: Keri Russell (W Waitress), Ray Liotta (Goodfellas)
Run Time: 1h 35m
Rating: R
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and hosts Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take out of WCBE 90.5 FM. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com
