Elizabeth Banks’ “Cocaine Bear” could have been so much more, but we’ll have to settle with what we got, which is a very dumb, Fargo-esque comedy.
Sometimes a film strives too hard to become a cult classic and that’s exactly the issue I have with “Cocaine Bear.” What bothered me most about Banks’ playful, very meta movie is how self-aware it was. Banks should have played it more straight, just to get unintentional B-movie vibes going. Instead, she directs it with the full knowledge and acknowledgment that what she’s creating here is absolutely ridiculous.
The result is reasonably fun with icky post-modern dialogue and delivery added in. There is a lot of gore in this movie, but it’s cartoonishly drawn out —amputated limbs, a blown-off head, and blood-galore. But I mean, really, if you buy a ticket for this movie it’s to watch a bear high on cocaine ripping a dozen or so people to death
I will say that for such a low-budgeted film ($35 million), the bear CGI looks great. In fact, whenever the bear is on-screen, the movie is at its best. Kudos to Allan Henry, a protégé of Andy Serkis, responsible for the bear’s amazing motion-capture performance.
The film’s pièce-de-resistance is an extended chase sequence between a bear and an ambulance. It’s so outrageously conceived, but it works wondrously well.
It’s the human characters, the side stories (missing kids, Ray Liotta’s drug kingpin, detectives, small-town shenanigans) that miss the mark. There are too many characters stuffed into this movie. That’s why the final stretch just doesn’t work at all. A literal cliff-hanging third-act, with all the story strands and characters pieced together. It doesn’t help that cinematographer John Guleserian’s ultra-dark photography becomes a major distraction.
Banks has no real stylistic stamp to her direction. This is mostly a straight-shooting affair. At least, it’s light years better than her previous directorial efforts, that “Charlie’s Angels” reboot and “Pitch Perfect 2.” However, I don’t think she fully took advantage of the juicy premise. She has no real energy or flair as a filmmaker.
The fact that “Cocaine Bear” is based on a true story makes it somewhat of a curiosity. But clearly, Banks has taken liberties with the actual events. The real-life female bear didn’t bother, let alone terrorize, anybody. She found the cocaine, indulged, then died of a heart attack.
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