"There was a bear...it fuckin' did cocaine. A BEAR did COCAINE! FUCK THIS!"
— Eddie White, neatly summarizing the movie's premise.
Cocaine Bear is a 2023 Horror Comedy film loosely inspired by an outrageous true story, directed by Elizabeth Banks and produced by Phil Lord & Chris Miller. The film stars an ensemble cast including Keri Russell, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Margo Martindale, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Kristofer Hivju, Matthew Rhys, Christian Convery, Brooklynn Prince, Scott Seiss and Ray Liotta (in one of his final film roles).
Set in 1985, the film follows a strange real life case
as several million dollars worth of cocaine is jettisoned from a cargo plane over a national park in Georgia (U.S.A.)… and promptly ingested by an American black bear. Now, cops, criminals, and citizens have more than just narcotics to worry about as the bear goes on an erratic, coke-fueled rampage.
The film was released on February 24, 2023.
Previews: Trailer 1
Cocaine Bear includes examples of:
- The '80s: The events that inspired the film took place in the 1980s. Accordingly, the fashions (jumpsuits, jackets) and facial hair evoke the decade, with some popular '80s music to back it up... Because the film is set in 1985.
- Adaptational Badass: The bear and her cubs. They do not OD as the real life bear did, instead becoming an apex predator.
- An Arm and a Leg: During the bear's rampage, Peter has his leg ripped off. The first victim, Elsa, also loses a leg, which lands in front of her traumatized boyfriend Olaf.
- Animal Nemesis: The titular bear to Syd, as he becomes obsessed with killing the animal in revenge for the trouble she's caused him.
- Artistic License – Biology:
- You would think so, and yet... The marketing runs with the "based on a true story" aspect of the incident, but a bear ingesting an entire brick of cocaine is probably enough to kill it before it could really get high off the stuff. However, the truth is stranger than fiction, as the real-life bear actually ate forty bricks, or seventy-five pounds of the stuff, before dying — although apparently he only absorbed three or four grams of blow into his bloodstream at the time of his death. Becomes a Double Subversion when the bear lives in the movie and has two cubs that are also addicted to cocaine.
- The two children both taste (but not eat) what is probably a full tablespoon of cocaine and suffer almost no side effects, outside of Henry suddenly becoming very hungry and more hyper for a few minutes. That is not how cocaine works. Even though both of them spit it out due to the taste, they would both be experiencing side effects and symptoms of cocaine consumption, but the movie mostly glosses over it.
- Ascended Meme: The entire movie is essentially a result of this—while the original story was memetic in and of itself, not long after the publication there were many jokes about how, before the real-life bear died of poisoning, it must have been the most dangerous predator in existence. Naturally, the movie is essentially an expansion on that.
- Asshole Victim: Of all the people the Cocaine Bear kills in her drug-infested rampage, Syd White is easily the one who had it coming the most, due to his abusive, selfish, and increasingly suicidal behavior.
- The Bad Guy Wins: For a given measure of "bad guy," the bear drives everyone away from its territory, having mauled several people, gets a Heroic Second Wind at the end of the film, manages to kill Syd White, and survives having eaten the cocaine, still stalking and implicitly killing anyone who enters its territory. That said, it's a wild animal, so "bad guy" may be too strong a term.
- Based on a True Story: The film is based on the true story of a bear who ingested a duffel bag of cocaine, died some time after, and whose body is now stuffed and on display at a Kentucky mercantile. Liberties were understandably taken.
- Bears Are Bad News: A black bear is driven to murderous rage from copious amounts of cocaine.
- Bittersweet Ending: On one hand, a lot of people have been brutally slaughtered, and the coke addicted bear and her cubs are still in the forest, leaving the possibility of another rampage open. On the other, Sari has rescued Dee Dee, a ruthless drug lord is no longer a threat to society, and his son Eddie is ready to move on with his life and be a better father to his son.
- Black Comedy: Most of the movie is this, playing the brutal killings of mostly innocent people and a wild animal becoming addicted to cocaine for laughs.
- Cavalry Betrayal: While cornered by Syd and bleeding out on the gazebo roof, Bob thinks he's saved when Reba shows up… only to learn she was working for Syd all along.
- Children Are Innocent: Henry does swear and even does cocaine in one scene but aside from that, he is a very innocent and good-hearted kid.
- Creative Closing Credits: The end credits play as paint and blood splash across the screen.
- Chekhov's Skill: Sari is established early on to be a nurse. In the finale, this lets her save Daveed's life after he's been shot.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Most of the deaths qualify, but Peter's is especially cruel since he's hung upside down from the top of tree while the bear slowly mauls his leg off. Oh, and then he's dropped on his head for good measure.
- Death by Ambulance: Paramedics Beth and Tom arrive and collect Liz after a brief skirmish with the bear. They leave with Liz in an ambulance, but the bear pursues and jumps into the vehicle. In the ensuing chaos, Tom is killed by the bear, while Liz falls out of the ambulance and is dragged to death on the road. Beth loses control of the ambulance and crashes into a tree, causing her to fly through the windshield to her death.
- Denser and Wackier: Sure, the true story of a bear who digested a ton of cocaine is already wacky and larger-than-life. However, the film takes the insanity of the story and turns it into more of a fun dark comedy-thriller where the bear goes on a murderous rampage. Unlike the movie or the legends saying otherwise, in the real story it never killed anyone.
- Detrimental Determination: Once they reach the mouth of the bear's cave, find some of the cocaine, and after seeing the damage the bear can do, Daveed, Eddie, and Reba all think it's best to quit while they're ahead, cut their losses, and just try to explain the situation to the Colombians. Syd, with the help of his rifle, makes it clear they're not leaving till they have all of it. He's the only one out of everyone who enters the cave who dies because of his refusal to jump off the falls and escape, instead trying to reach for more of the drugs.
- Didn't Think This Through: Bob manages to recover a bag of cocaine and get the drop on Daveed and Eddie after climbing a tree and jumping on top of a gazebo. As he's about to arrest the others, Bob realizes he doesn't have a safe way back down to the ground. And he hurt his hip on the landing.
- Dies Differently in Adaptation: In real life, Andrew C. Thornton II died jumping out of the plane and getting caught in his parachute. The opening of the film adds the wrinkle of him banging his head on the door while trying to jump out, knocking him unconscious as he falls to his death.
- Dirty Cop: Reba is revealed to be working with Syd.
- Drugs Are Bad: The film makes a point of this, starting by quoting Wikipedia on the non-violent nature of bears, before showing the titular bear attack a pair of European hikers. From there, it makes it clear that the predator's violent behavior is driven purely by coke, even showing 1980s anti-drug PSAs to make its point.
- Embarrassing Tattoo: Eddie got a heart tattoo which was supposed to say "Joan". The artist instead wrote "John".
- Emergency Cargo Dump: The film opens with Andrew C. Thornton II high on his own supply dumping the bags of cocaine out of a failing plane before attempting to jump out himself… and hitting his head on the door and falling out unconscious.
- Enemy Mine: Bob the cop and Daveed the drug dealer agree to a temporary truce to deal with the bear when it wanders into their stand-off. They go back to fighting over the drugs once the bear leaves.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The movie follows the exploits of a bear that ingests a shitload of cocaine.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Syd is a remorseless crime boss but he reacts with indignation when Reba the cop under his payroll reveals she left a dog in the car. This is called out by Eddie, given he left his ten-year-old grandson in St. Louis with less offense.
- Failed a Spot Check: At one point Syd is so focused on tracking the coke bag taken by the bear that he misses another bag hanging from a tree just to the side of their current path.
- Fingore: Bob the cop shoots off two of Daveed's fingers with his gun. The fingers are later eaten by a small dog, although Daveed concedes that they could never have reattached the fingers after that long.
- For Doom the Bell Tolls: A bell features prominently on the song "Cokey Comes Alive" from the soundtrack.
- Foreshadowing: At the start of the ambulance chase, the driver narrowly avoids driving straight into a tree while making sure her partner gets into the ambulance. At the end of the chase, she gets distracted by the bear mauling her partner to death before realizing too late that she's about to crash into a tree.
- Forgot to Mind Their Head: Andrew C. Thornton II bails out of his plane by throwing bags of cocaine out the door before preparing his parachute and jumping out... at which point he whacks his head on the door, knocking him unconscious and sending him falling to his death.
- From Dress to Dressing: Daveed uses his favourite jersey as a makeshift bandage after he loses several fingers.
- Gender Flip: The bear in the movie is female (confirmed when Eddie states that her vagina is by his ear while the bear is lying on top of him), while the real bear was male. She also is a literal Mama Bear.
- Gorn: When your main character is a pissed-off bear on cocaine, this is to be expected. However, the goriest moment is when Liz accidentally shoots one of the Duchamps through the head, leaving a huge hole.
- Gory Discretion Shot: A few of the kills are offscreen, such as both the hikers and Tom (the male paramedic).
- Gutted Like a Fish: Syd White's fate is to have his stomach sliced open by the bear and then his entrails feasted on by her cubs.
- Heroic Second Wind: For a given definition of "hero", the bear herself gets one. After Syd knocks her off a cliff, she gets a whiff of cocaine - giving her the energy to climb back up and maul him to death!
- Historical Badass Upgrade: The titular bear of this film gets this treatment compared to the real-life bear. The real-life bear died and harmed no one. The fictional bear not only survives a near-constant intake of coke, it's made much more dangerous (and murderous) as a consequence. At one point, the bear chases down and then jumps into an ambulance van going at full speed.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: In a movie that's all about a ferocious wild animal killing people in a drug-fueled rampage, Syd White somehow proves to be even more monstrous. He's an Abusive Parent who neglects his grandson and considers his own son a failure, while forcing both him and his other henchman Daveed into his revenge quest on the titular Cocaine Bear for consuming the drugs he was trying to traffic. He further shows no issues with threatening or hurting children (both human and bear cub alike) to get what he wants, and becomes even more deranged and homicidal as things continue to go wrong for him.
- I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Ranger Liz shoots at the bear while one of the Duchamps is standing not even a foot away from the line of fire. The kid gets a bullet through his brain while the bear runs off, unharmed.
- Innocent Innuendo: Peter doesn't seem to notice that Liz has a thing for him. When he spots her taxidermy, he blithely states, "You have a dusty beaver!" She responds, "I'm working on that..."
- Intoxication Ensues: The bear eats an entire package of coke, not knowing what it is, and quickly gets wired. Things go downhill from there.
- In-Universe Factoid Failure: Henry tries to reassure Peter that he's safe because bears can't climb trees. Peter stares at him for a moment before yelling that of course they can. Of course, Henry's immediate response is to ask why Peter bothered, since he should know better.
- It's Snowing Cocaine: The film opens with "several million dollars worth" of cocaine being thrown out of a plane over Knoxville. The bear is later seen eating an entire brick and having gotten into another.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Syd explains that if he doesn't reclaim all of the cocaine lost under his watch, the Colombians will kill him and his entire family, meaning Eddie and his son. However, as things progress, it's clear that he doesn't give a damn about his family at all and is only interested in the monetary value of the drugs. He even disowns his son after he refuses to risk his life further.
- Karma Houdini: Two of them.
- Reba is a Dirty Cop on Syd's payroll and does not suffer any significant consequences for betraying Bob to his death.
- Stache gets away with a bag of the cocaine in The Stinger, a little roughed up but not truly hurt.
- Logo Joke: The Lord Miller logo is redesigned with an '80s style crest, font, and blue and pink color palate.
- Mama Bear:
- Sari is willing to even brave the dangers of a coke-enraged bear to rescue her daughter.
- The cocaine bear herself is a literal example as we find out she is a mother of two cubs.
- Monster Is a Mommy: The bear has a pair of cubs, both as addicted to cocaine as she is.
- The Mourning After: Eddie is mourning his late wife, and his depression drives him to drink and leave his son with his dad, Syd.
- Mugging the Monster: High on the cocaine they found, the Duchamps try to mug Daveed, an experienced drug dealer, and promptly get their asses kicked.
- My Favorite Shirt: Daveed is more annoyed at his favorite jersey getting ruined than the fact he got stabbed in the shoulder. He later complains again that it's getting ruined when he uses it as a makeshift bandage for his missing fingers.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
- At one point Bob and Daveed work together to drive the bear off Eddie, but in return Bob is shot by Syd and left to bleed to death on the gazebo roof.
- Olaf, the hiker who helps Sari find her daughter, gets mauled to death by the bear.
- No MacGuffin, No Winner: After getting shot, Bob kicks the bag of cocaine to the ground knowing the bear will take it and deny it to Syd. While he does point them in the right direction to go after the bear, he points out they are actively seeking an apex predator high on drugs, viewing it as a Suicide Mission.
- Non-Malicious Monster: The bear, although it does viciously attack several people this is attributed to the mind-altering effects of cocaine and later maternal instinct rather than any true evil intent. Played with, in that its extremely violent behavior, while not willfully evil or cruel, is certainly abnormal.
- Noodle Incident: While we see the titular bear on cocaine throughout most of the movie, how it managed to find and consume its first bit of coke and become addicted to the stuff (and furthermore, manage to get her cubs on it as well) is never actually shown.
- Pain to the Ass: Park Ranger Liz takes a serious wound to her rear end in the initial confrontation with the bear, forcing her to retreat to the welcome center to get help.
- Psycho Knife Nut: Out of the Duchamps, Stache gives off this impression most strongly as he's seen twirling around a knife in his hand. Subverted when he turns out not to be that bad of a guy.
- Race Against Time: Both law enforcement and the drug runners are essentially racing against each other to recover the missing cocaine first.
- Rasputinian Death: Liz gets mauled in the ass by the bear, then mauled a second time to where she can barely speak afterwards, and is later thrown from the ambulance while tied to a stretcher and has her face shredded off from the road.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: At the film's climax, Henry loudly tells Syd what a piece of garbage he is. And he's 100% correct.
- Redemption Earns Life: Daveed steps in to protect first Reba then later Sari and the kids from Syd. As such, when Syd accidentally shoots him, Sari uses her medical skills to save his life.
- Riddle for the Ages: After Bob shoots off two of Daveed's fingers with a single bullet, the surviving Duchamp questions how Bob managed to shoot off Daveed's middle and little fingers without damaging the ring finger.
- Rule of Cool: How does the bear survive ingesting cocaine that should've killed it, including gaining a taste for the stuff? Because it makes for a good horror-comedy movie. The same goes for its cubs also getting addicted to cocaine with seemingly no side effects, as well as it managing to gain a Heroic Second Wind through ingesting a cloud of cocaine that lets it kill Syd White, and nonetheless surviving all these events despite pretty much everything mentioned being unlikely at best and improbable at worst — solely because it's cool to watch.
- Sacrificial Lamb: The female hiker in the beginning becomes the first victim of the bear's coke-fueled frenzy, driving her fiancè nearly insane with grief.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!:
- After the confrontation with the bear at the gazebo, Stache immediately takes the chance to flee the park and isn't seen again until The Stinger.
- As the hunt leads into the bear's cave, Syd's contact in the police leaves the rest, with Daveed and Eddie later following that example and leave Syd to his fate when the bear returns.
- Shout-Out:
- The two European hikers at the beginning of the movie are named Elsa and Olaf.
- After meeting up with Daveed and Eddie, Syd scolds the latter for leaving his son with him, referring to himself as "Daddy Day Care Center".note
- Skewed Priorities:
- Park Ranger Liz is more concerned about Henry saying "fucked" than the bear he said it in reference to.
- Park Ranger Liz also seems very annoyed with Sari, a mother desperately searching for her missing daughter, and instead wants to spend more time with her crush rather than finding the missing girl.
- When Syd learns about how the titular bear has stolen and consumed much of his cocaine, he becomes completely determined to get the rest of the coke back and kill the bear at all costs, even as his son and Daveed begin seeing the futility of the situation.
- Skipping School: Upset that her mom changed plans to paint a waterfall that weekend with her, Dee Dee convinces her friend Henry to skip with her to paint the waterfall themselves.
- Sound-Only Death: Just as Sari and Henry have found Dee Dee inside the bear's den, Olaf's screaming echoes from outside.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The ambulance chase scene has three people being brutally mauled by the Cocaine Bear - all while Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough" is playing.
- Spanner in the Works: The story begins with attempts by law enforcement and drug runners alike trying to recover the missing cocaine. Neither party could have anticipated that the contraband would get sampled by the local wildlife, let alone the local apex predator.
- Spared by the Adaptation: The final scene before the credits shows the bear still alive, whereas the real bear died of an overdose in real life.
- The Stinger: The film has two:
- The surviving member of the Duchamps hitches a ride to New York, bringing one of the bags of cocaine north. He gets a ride with a truck carrying sheep, throwing the bag in the bed with the sheep before quickly changing his mind.
- Daveed and Eddie return to Eddie's son, presenting him with Bob's dog. They then notice the dog eating Daveed's severed fingers.
- Super-Persistent Predator: The bear sprints after a speeding ambulance and even leaps into it during its rampage, apparently mistaking the EMT's bag for one of the cocaine duffels. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
- Teens Are Monsters: The Duchamps are a trio of teen delinquents who, after finding one of the bags of cocaine, get high and amuse themselves by attacking hikers with knives.
- Token Good Teammate: Eddie is the most benevolent of the group hunting for the drugs, as he only joined the group because he's doing a favor for Daveed.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The film focuses on how a large black bear ate a brick of cocaine and went on a drug-fueled murderous rampage against anyone that gets in its path. In real life, the bear was much smaller, male, and didn't harm anyone. It died of an overdose shortly after consuming the cocaine.
"It kinda seems like the thing that stays with a man forever..."
