Cocaine Bear:The bear that took coke and defied biology

Friday noon, there I was sitting on a balcony, under the shade of two massive overlooking trees, and streaming Cocaine Bear; with an aim to write a spoiler-free review, while there were prayers being belted out of an old 90s mic with a terrible PA system nearby. 

Before I begin the review itself, I should mention how the opening scene stayed with me. So check this out. There's this 1970's coke-dealer kind of looking guy pacing around inside of an airplane called Syd. He is hurling cocaine bars out of the plane's empennage into a forest below. Talk about starting with a bang!

Now here's what I witnessed in the next half hour.

Character introduction, which does indeed mention the bear. As the flying cocaine touches down in the land of the free, variable characters end up discovering the bars of cocaine that were thrown out of the airplane. 

Meet the protagonist Charlie Jhonson, also known as 'Christmas Snow,'. Cocaine and of course the bear sort of comes in as well. While this may not be the head-spinning chaos-fest we hoped for, it is not terrible either. Instead, actor turned film-maker Elizabeth Banks's third directorial feature (after Pitch Perfect 2 and the 2019 Charlie's Angels reboot) is sporadically light-hearted, that would remind you of the movies like 'Scream'- which was a scrappy affair of ripped body parts, severed heads and spilled intestines, all softened by an only partly parodic family-centered Spielbergian sensibility.

The storyline was set in the mid-80s and as the movie progresses, the eponymous bear snuffles up the air-dropped duffle bags filled with cocaine bars on Blood Mountain, who then proceeds to eat everything and everyone. On the trail of the stash are strongman Daveed (O'Shea Jackson Jr) and his broken-hearted sidekick, Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich), son of a drug kingpin played by the late Ray Liotta, to whom 'Cocaine Bear' is dedicated. 

Also in the frame are a dog-loving lawman (Isiah Whitlock Jr, nicely cheesy), a lovestruck ranger (Margo Martindale, sharing jokes about her 'dusty beaver') and a trio of wannabe local thugs in danger of losing face – literally. Most important, however, is single mom Sari (Keri Russell), on the hunt for her daughter, Dee Dee (The Florida Project's Brooklynn Prince), and her school friend Henry (Christian Convery), who ducked off school to play truant in the woods, only to discover a bear absolutely coked up to the nines.

That is the main plot of this movie. The Bear then proceeds to go on a rampage of killing people. The coke man from the 70s, Syd, makes another appearance cause you know he's been looking for his supply, following the trail with his son and his pretentious gangster friend.

When they finally came across the bear, the bear had already consumed three bars of cocaine. Now I don't know what kind of anatomy bears have, but if a bar of cocaine is plus or minus 1 kilo, that means the bear had consumed 3 kilos of cocaine. His heart should have stopped by now, but I know I'm being a cynic and nitpicking the granular details when I should be enjoying it for the purpose of entertainment. The bear crashes on top of one of the characters flat out. He must have been coming down like a mad man and just like a mad man, the minute the bear gets a sniff of coke, he resurrects to taking more cocaine. 

Now if Sharknado and Final Destination had a love child, this is what it would look like. At least  that's what I felt. As the movie credit came up,the only thing  that was going through my mind before I headed down to the wedding lunch was Dave Chappelle's portrayal of Rick James saying,"Cocaine is a hell of a drug."