Written by Josh Taylor
Every Saturday morning I would tune into the Sci-Fi Channel (before it was renamed SyFy) and watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 instead of the usual cartoons. I always loved watching these cheesy/goofy movies being riffed by either Mike Nelson or Joel Hodgson, with the company of their robot pals Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo. Flash forward to November of this previous year, while at work, a notification popped up for a new movie, directed by Elizabeth Banks, titled Cocaine Bear. This seemed like some ripped right out of MST3K, but what’s even crazier is that it’s loosely based on true events.
In 1985, a former narcotics officer turned drug smuggler, Andrew Thornton II, smuggled drugs from Columbia into the US by dropping the packages out of a plane into the Tennessee Valley in Georgia. On one run they had a bit more on board than their plane could handle, so he dropped 40 containers of cocaine over the wilderness of Chattahoochee National Forest. As Andrew prepared to jump, his parachute failed to open, which led to his demise. From the crash and his flight path, they were able to recover nine duffel bags of cocaine, the rest … well that’s where “Pablo Escobear” comes onto the scene. In Northern Georgia, a black bear discovered some of the cocaine that Andrew Thornton dumped out of his plane and ate it.
On December 23, 1985 the bears body was found and after an autopsy was performed, it was discovered that this bear ate 75 pounds (34 kilos) of cocaine, which was valued roughly around $2 million. That’s not where Pablo’s story ends however. In 2012, a store in Lexington Kentucky (Kentucky for Kentucky) purchased the mounted bear, and you can now meet the real cocaine bear in that store.
Now that we have a brief cover on the true incident, let’s focus on the Cocaine Bear movie. The film is about an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens who converge on a Georgia forest where a huge black bear goes on a murderous rampage after unintentionally ingesting cocaine. This film delivers on exactly what you’d expect from a film titled Cocaine Bear. It was delightfully campy/cheesy, gory at moments and felt like an ’80s throwback that would of made a great double feature at some drive-in with another animal attack movie. When our titular bear partakes in the aforementioned cocaine, it’s reminiscent of when Popeye would eat his spinach and have a sudden burst of energy/power. It made me crack up, thinking “Oh no … they don’t realize how bad it’s going to get now that Cokey is on a spell again”.
There were some great performances throughout this film like; the worried mother, Sari (Kerri Russell) looking for her daughter (Brooklynn Prince) with the help of park ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) and Peter (Jesse Tyler Ferguson). They find a scared and frightened friend of Sari’s daughter, Henry (Christian Convery) and also find one coked-out bear, hellbent on a drug filled bender and a little mayhem too. While these characters are dealing with a problem they couldn’t bear to handle, some drug dealers Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich) and Daveed (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) are sent out to the area to recover the duffle bags full of drugs, but had an altercation with some teenagers (Aaron Holliday, J.B. Moore and Leo Hanna), & then when they go to where one of the teens stashed some of the product, they’re met by an officer on their trail (Isiah Whitlock Jr.).
It was great to see Ray Liotta, in one of his last performances before his passing last year. He has a number of laugh out loud moments with O’Shea Jackson Jr., and Alden Ehrenreich. The song selection in this film was perfect in particular Pusha T’s new version of “White Lines.” I didn’t realize that Mark Mothersbaugh ( co-founder, lead singer and keyboardist of DEVO) did the score for the film, it captured the film well.
Cocaine Bear is the perfect rush you need to experience in theaters. You’ll laugh, you’ll maybe cry and you’ll cheer for cocaine bear’s triumph in the woods. If you’re fans of films like Wet Hot American Summer or shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000, then you’ll probably be a fan of this apex predator film, Cocaine Bear.
