It's a Bear...on Cocaine. What more can I say?
SPOILER WARNING!
The title of this article says it all. This movie is about a bear that gets high on cocaine and goes wild. However, I will be giving you all MY THOUGHTS on this film! A few things I always say in my reviews are that these are my thoughts, I am not a critic, and your opinion matters more than mine. Let's review!
Before we jump in, let's see who is a part of this film:
Director- Elizabeth Banks
Keri Russell- Sari
Alden Ehrenreich- Eddie
O'Shea Jackson Jr.- Daveed
Ray Liotta- Syd
Isiah Whitlock Jr.- Bob
Scott Seiss- Tom
There are a ton of other characters in this movie, but I just wanted to say a few.
Let me take you back to 1985 in my home state of Tennessee. Now think about an American Black Bear wondering the forest just minding its own business when all of a sudden, this bear finds some cocaine and eats it. This all actually happened, but the bear did overdose and die so this is where our story would've
ended but Elizabeth Banks wanted to add more to the bear's story and that is how we have the comedy horror known as "Cocaine Bear"! This movie is wild, over the top, outrageous and crazy but all in the best ways possible. I had an absolute blast with this movie and walked out of the theater with a smile on my face and a good time. I was debating on writing a review for the film because when you really think about it, the movie sounds ridiculous and dumb, but my curiosity was peaked when I heard that these events happened in my home state and the bear was legit. Let's discuss some negatives from the movie.
To start things off, this movie is hard to review because like the title says, it is about a bear that does cocaine. I don't know how many times I have to say that but it's as wild as you may imagine. I thought this movie was great, but it does have some issues with it. I do fine the idea of having mini sub stories going on during the adventure of the bear, but some of the stories were meh. I wished that everyone would've survived to meet the bear at the end, but we only see a handful of character at the end. Another small issue I had with the mini stories was that some ran to long and other went by in a flash. There was no real pace with each story. An example I have is meeting Scott Seiss character Tom. I knew who Scott was from social media and he had been in the trailers and video packages, but he had maybe 5 minuets of screen time during this hour and a half film. I wanted more but was left with other things. The pacing of the mini stories was the big issue I had with it. Other than that, I really didn't have other issues.
To end the review, let's look at the positives. The movie is dumb fun and that's all you need to know. I enjoyed the comedy, the horror, the violence and the performances from the actors. I didn't know this until afterwards that this was Ray Liotta's last film before his untimely passing and his character was Syd, the drug lord who wanted to retrieve the lost cocaine and even have the final standoff with the bear. Going off of that last point, the performances were really solid. Every single actor had a good mini story to tell, and they told it with comedy, intensity and emotion. The overall story was told in a way that I had no idea could be told. They took one main story with the bear getting high off of cocaine and surrounded it with mini stories that bled into the main one. I honestly think that was a great way to tell it.
Overall, this movie was fun and a great time. I laughed, I smiled and I even face palmed at times. Like I said before, it is hard to "review" this movie because its dumb fun and who doesn't love that!