When a film is titled “Cocaine Bear,” it’s fairly easy to guess the premise and filmmaker Elizabeth Banks wants to assure anyone who is interested that the film does ‘exactly what it says on the tin’. That said, she also says there are deeper themes and concepts in play in this dark comedy.
Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, the story sees an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists, and teens converge on a Georgia forest where a 500- pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage.
Speaking with Total Film recently, she says that while the film is indeed about “a bear high on cocaine attacking people,” it’s also very much a “fun character piece” with a group of people coming together and “very much in over their heads. Everybody is going after the drugs, and nobody realizes that the bear got there first.”
She says one thing that was very important with the film, despite the wackiness of the premise, was that all the characters had to feel like real people. This led to one recurring theme of parenthood in the film.
Another is the film’s 1980s setting – a time in America’s failed war on drugs which plays a big part in the bear’s revenge story:
“In the 1980s, […] the war on drugs was intensified significantly. This video takes place in 1985, at the height of anti-crack initiatives in the United States. So many of these measures failed, and this bear was an incidental casualty. The second aspect relates to nature itself. Human arrogance leads us to believe we can control nature. However, if you disrespect nature, it will disrespect you.”
This marks Banks’ third effort as a director, but her first original film that’s not part of a franchise, and thus she’s personally committed to getting it right. She says:
“Its been fun to see people relate to the movie. It’s terrifying [when a film is finished and out of your hands]. That’s my horror movie right there. There’s only so much that I can control. All that being said, I’m really proud of [it]. I can sleep well at night knowing that I did my job well, and that if audiences want to see a movie called ‘Cocaine Bear,’ I have delivered a film that lives up to the title.”
Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Christian Convery, Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Brooklynn Prince, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Kristofer Hivju, Hannah Hoekstra, Aaron Holiday, and Emmy winners Margo Martindale and Ray Liotta co-star in the film which was penned by Jimmy Warden.
“Cocaine Bear” opens in cinemas on February 24th 2023.
