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The Cocaine Bear
Cocaine Bear
- Adaptational Badass: Unlike the real bear who overdosed on the drug, the film counterpart survives ingesting large quantities of cocaine.
- Addled Addict: The bear's one weakness is that it is constantly looking for its next fix, and is easily distracted by any source of cocaine. Henry survives nearly being eaten by the bear because it could smell that Peter had cocaine on him, at which point it immediately switched targets to Peter, allowing Henry to escape with Sari. It's also briefly fooled by an EMT bag, as the size and color is similar to the duffel bags carrying bricks of coke.
- Antagonist Title: The bear represents the animalistic threat whereas Syd White is the main human threat.
- Gender Flip: The real-life bear was male, but this version is female.
- Immune to Drugs: While the bear may suffer the effects of the cocaine, overdosing is never a concern.
- It Can Think: While it acts violently due to the cocaine, the bear displays its intelligence a few times. For instance, after tracking Ranger Liz to the station, they hear loud noises on the roof indicating that the bear was on top. However, it is a diversion with the bear attacking through the window.
- Lightning Bruiser: Bears are already strong, tough and fast as is, but getting coked up just makes those attributes even worse.
- Mama Bear: A literal example; when Syd White threatens its cubs, the bear arrives to rescue them. After Syd makes the mistake of raining cocaine dust, this reinvigorates the bear who mauls and then disembowels the drug dealer.
- Monster Is a Mommy: Unlike the real-life bear, the film's version is a female with two bear cubs.
- Non-Malicious Monster: It's just a mother bear that is defending its territory while under the affects of drugs making it more aggressive than normal, and thinks said drugs taste good.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: It attacks Dee Dee and Henry, but instead of mauling the former, the bear instead kidnaps her and takes her to its cave.
Main characters
Sari
Played by: Keri Russell
The mother of Dee Dee. She also works as a nurse.- Action Survivor: She manages to survive at least two close encounters with the titular bear.
- Chekhov's Skill: Her status as a nurse seems irrelevant at first, but near the end she is able to help treat Daveed's injuries after he's shot and falls off a cliff.
- Mother Bear: She is willing to go up against a bear as long as her daughter was safe.
Dee Dee
Played by: Brooklynn Prince
- Chekhov's Skill: The reason why she was even in the forest in the first place was to paint a secret waterfall. She later uses the paints to lead her mother and Henry to the cave she’s hiding in.
- Disappeared Dad: Her father left the family and is implicitly a deadbeat.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Dee Dee sustains a minor leg injury from the bear that she patches up herself, in comparison to almost every other person who encountered Cocaine Bear.
- Parent with New Paramour: Dislikes her mother's new boyfriend.
- Trail Of Breadcrumbs: She leaves a trail of items in her pack when grabbed by the bear, allowing Sari to find her.
Henry
Played by: Christian Convery
- Blatant Lies: He pretends he's done cocaine before, much to Dee's disbelief. When challenged to prove it by doing some of the coke they found, he quickly proves he has no idea what he's doing.
- Not Now, Kiddo: When the adults find him after the first bear attack, they talk over him for different reasons instead of listening to him explain about the bear that attacked him and Dee.
The Druggers
Syd White
Played by: Ray Liotta
The film's human antagonist and the abusive father of Eddie. After being pressured by his superiors with getting the cocaine back, Syd finds himself in conflict with the bear.- Abusive Parents: He is emotionally abusive towards his son Eddie and resents him for trying to leave the family business. In addition, he is an absolutely neglectful grandfather who can barely tolerate his grandson.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Bob lampshades that Syd is heading towards an apex predator currently hyped out of its mind on cocaine and elects to tell Syd where it went in the hopes that the obvious outcome occurs. It does.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: When the bear becomes renewed from the dust of cocaine he poured off the cliff, Syd is mauled and disemboweled by the bear. The cubs even eat some of his intestines.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Syd is appalled that Reba left a dog in the car. Harshly averted minutes later when Syd casually threatens to kill said dog if he doesn't get what he wants.
- Lack of Empathy: He shoots Bob feeling zero remorse for it.
- Meaningful Name: A cocaine dealer with the surname "White".
- Would Hurt a Child: Threatens to kill Dee and Henry and expresses willingness to shoot the cocaine bear's cubs.
Eddie
Played by: Alden Ehrenreich
- Affably Evil: Downplayed. He's not actually evil, just a sullen, recently widowed drug dealer — although only because he wanted to impress his father Syd and later abandons the business after Syd gets killed.
- Excessive Mourning: He is in mourning for his dead wife, Joan, and Syd at least feels it is excessive. Given Eddie hasn't seen his son in over a week because he's too busy Drowning My Sorrows, Syd has a point.
- Parental Neglect: Does this to his son Gabe after his wife dies. In the end, he makes a better effort to raise him.
- Uncertain Doom: It’s not totally certain wether Syd was lying or not when he said that the Colombian cartel would come after and kill him, his loved ones and anyone working for him if he failed to recover the drugs, with Syd dead and the cocaine still in the forest, Eddie and Daveed may have the Colombian cartel coming after them.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Is still in the "family business" to impress his father. Towards the end of the movie, he decides to give it up and return to his son.
Daveed
Played by: O'Shea Jackson Jr.
- Butt-Monkey: Suffers a lot of injuries over the course of under 24 hours.
- Fingore: Loses his middle and little fingers from a surprisingly well-placed gunshot.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's a gruff drug dealer, who seems annoyed with Eddie during most of the film and is (initially) very dedicated to getting the cocaine at all costs. That said, he does seem to like Eddie and eventually turns against Syd when he threatens the lives of Sari and her kids.
- Made of Iron: Daveed sustains many injuries throughout the film including a stab wound to the back, a minor beating, a gunshot wound that rips off two of his fingers, and a gunshot graze to his chest and neck. He survives, though.
- Redemption Equals Life: Saves Reba from getting shot by Syd, and later turns against Syd when he threatens Sari and the kids. When he sustains a gunshot wound shortly afterwards, Sari saves his life.
- Uncertain Doom: It’s not totally certain wether Syd was lying or not when he said that the Colombian cartel would come after and kill him, his loved ones and anyone working for him if he failed to recover the drugs, with Syd dead and the cocaine still in the forest, Daveed and Eddie may have the Colombian cartel coming after them.
Law Enforcement
Ranger Liz
Played by: Margo Martindale
Ranger for the Chattahoochee Forest National Park. This whole mess gets dropped into her lap, and she's...unprepared.- Dirty Coward: She goes to get more bullets after being bitten in the backside by the bear, leaving Sari, Henry and Peter to fend for themselves against the bear. Later, when the paramedics Beth and Tom arrive at the ranger station and she is loaded into the ambulance and Tom has just been pinned by the bear, she tells Beth to abandon him.
- I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: While trying to kill the Cocaine Bear she accidentally blows the head off one of the Duchamps.
- Passed-Over Promotion: Claims she could be at Yellowstone by now if it weren't for these delinquent kids causing trouble in the park making it look like she can't handle it.
- Police Are Useless: Technically not a police officer, but she's very bad at her job, caring more about winning Peter's affections than actually trying to help a mother find a missing child.
- Skewed Priorities: She is more concerned about flirting and trying to impress Peter than helping locate two unsupervised and potentially missing children.
- After locating Henry, who tells them about the bear that attacked him and Dee Dee, she is more concerned with him using “inappropriate” language than the aggressive bear he is trying to warn them about.
Bob
Played by: Isiah Whitlock Jr.
Knoxville police detective who comes to Georgia in search of the cocaine Thornton dumped.- Did Not Think This Through: His stalemate with Eddie and Daveed results from his climbing on top of the gazebo to get the hidden cocaine without much thought about how he was going to get back down.
- Die Laughing: his last words as he bleeds out is to mock Syd for going after a drug-crazed black bear and thinking it's going to go well for him.
- Hidden Depths: Bob is a gruff, humorless, no-nonsense detective, but he adores his little dog Rosette.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: manages to shoot off two of Daveed's fingers, and they're not even the ones next to each other. Stache is oddly impressed.
- Inspector Javert: Mild example. He travels well out of his jurisdiction, completely on his own, to recover the evidence and nail Syd White.
Reba
Played by: Ayoola Smart
Knoxville police officer and subordinate of Bob.- Apologetic Attacker: She and Bob like and trust each other, to the point where Bob trusts her to watch Rosette while he's gone. She's genuinely remorseful watching him die.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Reba is revealed to be a dirty cop working for Syd, she begrudgingly looks after Bob’s dog Rosette when he has to go out of town only after much begging from Bob, she left Rosette in her car which even ruthless drug-lord Syd disapproves of and then after Bob’s death, rather than at least take the dog to a shelter she just abandons Rosette outside the ranger station (luckily she gets picked up by Eddie and Daveed).
- Dirty Cop: She's on Syd's payroll.
- Karma Houdini: Despite being revealed as a corrupt cop who was in drug-lord Syd’s pocket and being involved in the murder of Bob, her fellow officer, she get’s away scot-free.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: First one to bail when it becomes clear that Syd's obsession with getting the cocaine back is going to kill them all.
