Cocaine Bear
Year: 2023
Rating: R
Length: 95 minutes / 1.58 hours
Back when I was in college, the most ridiculous concept for a movie was none other than Snakes on a Plane (2006). Now, almost 20 years later, the only movie that comes close to that level of ridiculous plot is Cocaine Bear (2023). Of course, being a ridiculous premise doesn’t make it a good movie by any means. Not even the fact that it’s loosely based on true events can help its lack of plot. But how much plot can you really fit into “bear snorts a ton of cocaine”?
Part of the problem with Cocaine Bear is that it doesn’t quite lean into the ridiculousness. There are too many moments that try to play the situation as seriously as possible. Despite all the stupid death scenes, there weren’t nearly as many knowing winks toward the camera to make it into a violent dark comedy. Instead, Cocaine Bear sits in this weird limbo of not being taken seriously while also holding tight onto the “true events” designator. If it went in either direction, it might have been a better film.
It’s also astonishing to me that this movie was only 95 minutes long. There were at least three separate plotlines, which felt like maybe two plotlines too many. The unfocused nature of the narrative jumping back and forth between park rangers, drug dealers, and (un)happy campers left me feeling bored. For a movie as short as this and a premise ripe for escalating into a cocaine-fueled fight to the death, I was not expecting to look at my watch as many times as I did. Sure, the movie has some novelty for bringing unbelievable events to the big screen, but that’s about it.
A surprisingly boring film about a drug addict bear killing people, I give Cocaine Bear 3.0 stars out of 5.
