Cocaine Bear @ Movie Theaters Across Seattle

Let him have his high 🐻

📸: Courtesy Universal Pictures

Opening Friday, February 24th, with evening screenings on February 23rd.

You remember what they taught you in high school chemistry, right? Cocaine + Bear = Cocaine Bear.

Based on the incredible true story of exactly what it sounds like, it’s 1985. While moving drugs out of Colombia and into the United States, two smugglers push a crapload of cocaine out of their plane to gain altitude over the forests of Georgia. An American black bear finds said crapload of cocaine then does as bears do and ingests the whole thing. Chaos ensues.

This is where I chime in that the film, directed by actress/filmmaker Elizabeth Banks (I have a soft spot for her nearly plotless comedy Pitch Perfect 2), takes a few narrative liberties. While there is no record of what happened between the ingestion and the bear’s eventual demise, that didn’t stop screenwriter Jimmy Warden from imagining that, hey, a 500-pound bear high AF in the forest would probably start smacking humans around and not GAF about the carnage it leaves in its wake. Let him have his high!

The ensemble includes Keri Russell and her The Americans costar/life partner Matthew Rhys, plus Alden Ehrenreich (Solo), Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project), O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Ingrid Goes West), Character actress Margo Martindale (Justified), and Ray Liotta in one of his final performances (because you see, in Goodfellas, he was the Cocaine Bear).

It’s comedy plus horror plus action plus a big ol’ chunk of mammal. Also, I expect several of you to dress up as Cocaine Bear (a.k.a. “Pablo Escobear”) on Halloween 2023; we can’t all be M3gan.

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Author

Marcus Gorman

Marcus Gorman is a Seattle-based playwright and film programmer. He once raised money for a synagogue by marathoning 15 Adam Sandler movies in one weekend. You can find him on Instagram and Twitter @marcus_gorman.