There’s something to be said for a clear title. Seriously, Triangle of Sadness tells you almost nothing about the movie it’s appended to. But Cocaine Bear? Now, there’s a title you can set your watch by. And Cocaine Bear is in cinemas now.
Very loosely based on a true story, Cocaine Bear tells the gruesome and hilarious tale of what happens when an apex predator gets coked to the gills. Having ingested a staggering amount of Colombian marching powder that has been dropped into a Georgia forest from a smuggler’s airplane, the big bruin goes on a nose candy-fuelled rampage, munching on an ensemble cast that includes Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Christian Convery, Brooklynn Prince, Isiah Whitlock Jr., character actor Margo Martindale, and, in one of his final performances, the late Ray Liotta.
This one comes to us from actor and director Elizabeth Banks, who previously gave us Pitch Perfect 2 and the most recent gig screen iteration of Charlie’s Angels, showing a flair for offbeat, self-aware comedy. The trailer for Cocaine Bear certainly set the internet afire when it dropped, but do clicks translate into ticket sales? Readers of a certain age may recall a similar sequence of events all the way back in 2006 when the blatantly titled Snakes on a Plane starring Samuel L. Jackson attracted a ton of online excitement only to do poorly at the box office—and if you are one of those readers, how’s your back today?
Still, this looks like a ton of fun—who amongst us is not tempted by a drugged-up “when animals attack” flick? The only way through is to embrace the absurdity and gratuitous excess, and if Cocaine Bear sticks by that guiding axiom, this could well be a Friday night beer ‘n’ pizza staple for years to come.
