“Cocaine Bear” and Family

How Cocaine Can Bring us Together or Bring us Ruin

The bear this movie is based on is taxidermied at a Kentucky mall and now called “Pablo Eskobear.”

This movie is as weird and fucked up as you’d think it to be.

And as badass and intense as this movie poster looks, this is, for all intents and purposes, a comedy.

Is it marginally funny that a bear would have access to dozens of kilos of cocaine? Absolutely. Is it based on a true story? Quite actually yes, but with some imagination sprinkled in and a good chunk of the realism bent to resemble a horseshoe.

There are new characters thrown in that weren’t in the original lore, but a random act of a drug deal gone awry can be transformed into a worthwhile tale of family, parenthood, and 80s nostalgia with a little bit of Hollywood magic (which if we’re being honest, probably has some of that white stuff sprinkled on it too).

There’s drama, there’s a car chase, there’s a CGI bear that makes this comedy feel like a horror.

If you’ve ever wondered how a 500-lb bear jacked to the nines on cocaine would act like when threatened by an overworked mother, a retired drug dealer, and a crooked cop, this is the chick-flick for you.

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Family

Where is the light coming from? Probably from an Aputure 600D but we can actually see what’s happening on the screen and I love that for them.

It’s funny because I felt like Dom Toretto from the Fast and the Furious franchise when I was watching this movie and there were some emotional moments that had me clutching my chest and groaning “Ah, family.”

Mind you, it wasn’t actually that emotional but it was such a wild ride with such gore and laughter torn from my lips against my better judgement that any emote on the opposite end of the spectrum was a nice relief and had me sipping on some sort of hormone juice.

There are several instances of family here:

1. Sari (Keri Russell) and Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) [and lowkey Henry played by Christian Convery because he was like the adopted second kid that’s in love with the professed “step-sister.” Cue the Sweet home Alabama music].

2. The drug dealing dad, Syd (Ray Liotta RIP) and Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich).

3. Eddie with his own son that we vaguely see at the end.

4. Also Eddie (this man’s not even the main character but he has a lot of great moments in this film) and Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr.).

5. The mama bear (because she is, yes, a mother) and her cubs. Her cub-lings? Baby bears?

I admired how wildly different each of these pairs is. There is love in each one of them, but how they are expressed and the amount of affection generally shown differs enough to call attention to them.

We go through the spectrum of poor parenting to great and all the levels in between.

Hmm. Except maybe the relationship between Eddie and his dad. That was just…all sorts of messed up. I would consider the relationship between Eddie and Daveed to be more heartfelt and relatable than the former.

Ouch this lighting hurts.

Motherhood

I don’t say this often but what an aggressively pink jumpsuit. Doesn’t mesh with the foliage at all. 2/10 for camouflage.

To dive deeper into the family lore because I don’t know what else to talk about, the creator of Cocaine Bear Jimmy Warden really wanted to hit on the motherly aspect to draw out empathy that overcomes and summarily drives this story from start to finish.

Sari goes into the woods after a night shift as a nurse to find and eventually save her daughter and her friend.

Ultimately, the mama bear wants to provide (more cocaine) for her cubs and protect them.

Both are mothers and both are trying to take care of their progeny.

These desires to provide safety come and conflict with each other, not directly but in off shoots because of the action/reaction interplay.

A story about a bear on cocaine can only go for so long, but adding in characters that have depth and universal plights makes for a more compelling story. This motherly aspect is definitely a nice relief from the absurdity of the bear and the silliness of what we’re witnessing.

Based on True Stories

This entire dynamic was funny as heck.

I actually love that this is based on a true story. A bear actually got into some dude’s cocaine stash that he yeeted out of his plane because of course he had a plane in the 1980s.

It was an idea, a concept, a news headline that definitely had people buzzing and got Jimmy Warden enamored for long enough to make a script.

This story definitely could’ve gone a different way. Hitting the gore and horror hard as can be and never letting up on the gas is one option. It could’ve been a massive blood fest that never had a breather.

Another slasher/gore/horror film to add to the list to fade into anonymity with time.

The rave reviews come from the contrived depth and silliness and lack of expectation many went into this film with. Because I can assure you, majority of people in the theater I watched this at wanted to watch a fun film about a silly bear hopped up on cocaine. What we got was a longer story filled with actually endearing characters with goals that absolutely conflicted with each other but elevated the stakes every time.

The families involved are fabricated. The dirty cops, the brotherly love, the funky looking dog in the car, the ambulance chase. All bits that fell out of the writer’s gray matter.

All beautiful little pieces Warden created for the better enjoyment of this story. Not completely true to the story but still acknowledging its roots and giving structure to this story.

Which I think is a good metaphor for life and writing in general:

Look around you. Breathe in the life you’re living and always carry around a notebook. You never know when something interesting might fall out of the sky.

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This is where I first heard of the cocaine bear:

Nick Terry is a wonderful animator and was so kind as to reply to my emails about animation and how to become a better artist. He has officially partnered with My Favorite Murder, which is another awesome podcast I recommend giving a listen to!