Cocaine Bear (2023)

Set in 1985, a man (Matthew Rhys) drops a shipment of cocaine from his plane over Tennessee. He attempts to parachute from the plane with a duffel bag filled with cocaine but he accidentally knocks himself unconscious and falls to his death. Meanwhile in Georgia, an American black bear eats some of the cocaine and attacks two tourists, killing one of them. It's just the beginning of the bear's coke fueled deadly rampage. Directed by Elizabeth Banks (PITCH PERFECT 2). The film is very loosely based on an actual event when a 175 pound black bear ingested the cocaine but he died (his body was found some three months later) and didn't kill anybody. The film's premise is that the bear lives and goes on a coke fueled rampage. If the film had been played straight, there's a good chance it could have invoked unintentional laughter so the film makers wisely made it an intentional over the top comedy not to be taken seriously. It's a one joke premise and perhaps sensing audiences would get tired of it, the movie runs about 90 minutes but it still drags in spots. I had a good time with it, the movie knows it's dumb and plays on it. It's the kind of movie where someone getting shot in the head or getting their leg chewed off is played for laughs. The acting is wildly all over the place but two performances stand out: Margo Martindale as a park ranger and Isiah Whitlock Jr. as a police detective. With Keri Russell, Ray Liotta, Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Brooklynn Prince.