The Diplomat star Keri Russell’s cult horror-comedy film Cocaine Bear is now available on Netflix UK and Ireland.
Released in 2023 and directed by Elizabeth Banks, the film also stars Modern Family‘s Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Straight Outta Compton‘s O’Shea Jackson Jr, Solo: A Star Wars Story‘s Alden Ehrenreich, and Goodfellas‘ Ray Liotta, in his final film role (the whole film is dedicated to him).
As the title implies, the film shows what happens when a bear snorts a shed load of cocaine and goes on a rampage. It’s actually based – although quite loosely – on a true story where drug smugglers lost a load of their product and an American black bear ended up ingesting it.
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In Digital Spy‘s review of the film, we praised Banks for her direction and playing it (relatively) straight.
“It’s hard to be totally serious with the concept, but the characters are reacting to the situation they’re in rather than making gags about it,” our review reads.
“There’s also time spent on developing the characters so that you care about them, whether it’s the mother searching for her daughter or the son trying to break free from his drug-kingpin father.
“It’s an oddball group of characters, but it works due to a talented cast.”
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The cast also shared some funny anecdotes from the making of the film, especially involving the actor standing in for the bear on set, with Ehrenreich stating: “Allan [Henry] was great and we got real close and we got into each others’ parts of our bodies.
“All those parts and all the smells, and it was nice. That was definitely one of the craziest moments, but what’s fun is that our characters are also experiencing this as a crazy moment. So every time we’re going, ‘What the f**k’, we really get to go, ‘What the f**k’.”
Cocaine Bear is now available for Netflix UK and Ireland subscribers to stream.
Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he’s covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small.
A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe’s main interest is in video gaming. Although particularly a PlayStation gamer, he plays across Xbox, Nintendo and PC/Steam Deck, and likes to keep tabs on many games he’s not got the time to play.
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