by Iain Robertson
As premises go, it’s hardly the most complicated: bear snorts a shitload of cocaine, goes on a drug-fuelled rampage, and people die. Very loosely based on a true story (where a load of coke was tossed out a plane, found and eaten by a bear who, well, just died), it’s a great premise for a fun, low-budget B-movie.
And yet, Hollywood, in its infinite wisdom, threw a load of money at it. Whenever studios try and make a big-budget B-movie, it takes some of the fun out of it. It’s the Snakes on a Plane syndrome, where throwing in an A-list cast, director, and state-of-the-art effects, gives the film a shine that detracts from its premise. Part of the charm of this type of movie is the lo-fi, schlocky feel. Actors slumming it, cheap effects, sex, violence, a guy in a bear suit, and, more often than not, a director who thinks they’re making a masterpiece. Here there’s an impressive cast (Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich, O’Shea Jackson and the late, great Ray Liotta in one of his final roles) who are in on the joke and know this is beneath them. And director Elizabeth Banks is both a talented comic actor and director of mainstream comedies (Pitch Perfect 2 and the recent Charlie’s Angels).
Cast-wise, O’Shea and Ehrenreich are fun as a couple of gangsters are sent in to retrieve the cocaine. Russell is a mum looking for her kid (and sporting a hideous pink jumpsuit – it is set in the ‘80s, something the film only occasionally remembers), and Liotta plays the kind of gangster he was typecast in pretty much everything he made post-Goodfellas. They all equip themselves admirably. Meanwhile, the rest of the cast, especially Margo Martindale and Jesse Tyler Ferguson as a Park ranger and weird conservationist type, respectively, give performances so comically broad that they seem to be in a completely different movie. Banks is a competent director, but her humour doesn’t have the dark edge the material calls for – imagine the twisted fun a Sam Raimi or Dead Snow’s Tommy Wirkola could have with a concept like this. Instead, what you end up with is a comedy horror where the laughs aren’t particularly funny, and the scares are non-existent. Hollywood laughing at, instead of with the genre. It’s all strangely neutered, schlock with all the hard edges smoothed out to make it accessible to a mainstream audience. Basically, it’s a bit of a mess: fun, but it could have been so much more.
Extras-wise, there’s a fairly standard package. A fun commentary from the husband and wife team of Banks and producer Max Handelman; an alternate ending and deleted scenes – all of which were wisely left out, and a couple of featurettes, which suggests all involved had a blast making the movie. The highlight of these, though, is the on-set footage of the poor guy playing the bear, running around on all fours in a black leotard and arm extensions. Unfortunately, it’s a lot more entertaining than most of what’s in the actual movie.
Cocaine Bear is available now on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital Download.
