In September 1985, Tennessee authorities discovered the body of Andrew Carter Thornton II, a former narcotics officer turned drug smuggler who had fallen to his death from a plane. The bags full of cocaine he was transporting into the country took longer to recover. By the time the illicit cargo was found in Georgia's Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, much of it had already been ingested by an unfortunate 175-pound black bear, found dead nearby of a massive overdose. From this real-life tale of greed, stupidity and humanity's unthinking abuse of nature rises a natural question: What if the bear, rather than simply kilo-ing over, had gone on a murderous coke-fueled rampage driven by a hunger for not just sinewy human flesh (though there's plenty of that), but for another whiff of that sweet, sweet powder?
Nasty, brutish and snort-filled, "Cocaine Bear" provides an extremely gory and amusingly speculative answer. Having grabbed headlines with its viral trailer, cheerfully self-explanatory title and sly redefinition of "high concept," the movie has already invited obvious pre-release comparisons to "Snakes on a Plane," the (sadly underseen) 2006 thriller that soared for months as an internet sensation before crashing to box-office earth. Whether or not audiences form lines for "Cocaine Bear," it's hard to completely dismiss a mainstream horror-comedy that offers a nice supply of sharp and grisly, at least until it takes a disappointing turn for soft and cuddly. You've seen worse new movies in February, maybe even this February.
What you probably haven't seen is a 500-pound bear (because everything is bigger in Hollywood) mauling her way through a once-idyllic stretch of federally protected woodland. (Most of this largely Georgia-set movie was shot in rural Ireland.) In keeping with most of today's apex-predator-run-amok entertainments, including last year's solidly entertaining "Beast," this fictional version of "Pablo Escobear" (a locally coined nickname) is entirely and convincingly computer-generated, from her lethal claws to the end of her increasingly coke-dusted, bloodstained snout.
