Cocaine Bear (2023) Review

Cocaine Bear (2023) Review

Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild dark comedy finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists, and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500-pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fuelled rampage for more blow … and blood.

From Director Elizabeth Banks (CHARLIE’S ANGELS, PITCH PERFECT 2) and co-producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller COCAINE BEAR immediately became an instant favourite. It’s fun, it’s very gory and extremely silly and fun is not exactly something that plays in abundance with cinematic fare of late, with the template action of Marvel and DC and other safe offerings from other franchises it’s refreshing to see a film rip through the rulebook and offer up something else instead.

Anyone sitting down to view this as anything other than what it is – pure B-movie – are just as stupid as many of the characters onscreen and I’ve encountered a few such people on social media that protested that it was crap because it was making them laugh too much – it’s meant to, idiots! Released under the title CRAZY BEAR in some other territories this American horror comedy film has set-pieces and death scenes to die for.

Out of the cast it’s great to see former Han Solo Alden Ehrenreich finding his groove and Keri Russell (currently rocking it in Netflix’s THE DIPLOMAT) is, as always, a joy to watch. It is dedicated to the late great Ray Liotta, who died in May 2022.

‘MAXIMUM RAMPAGE EDITION’ EXCLUSIVE BONUS FEATURES TO OWN ON 4K ULTRA HD, BLU-RAYTM, DVD & DIGITAL DOWNLOAD*:

Alternate Ending

Deleted & Extended Scenes

Gag Reel

All Roads Lead to Cokey: The Making of COCAINE BEAR – Meet the hilarious ensemble brought together to bring the movie of what is soon to be the world’s most famous bear to life.

UnBEARable Bloodbath: Dissecting the Kills – From rigging to special effects makeup, to some of the actors doing their own stunts, we’ll get a bears-eye view into some of COCAINE BEAR’s hilarious and gory kill scenes.

Doing Lines – Cast and filmmakers read lines from the script to COCAINE BEAR, which was a work of art unto itself.

Feature Commentary with Director/Producer Elizabeth Banks and Producer Max Handelman

*available via AppleTV only

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