in the footsteps of a cocaine-addicted bear

THE OPINION OF “THE WORLD” – WE CAN AVOID

Third film by actress and director Elizabeth Banks (Charlie’s Angels2019), crazy bear is inspired by a funny news item: in 1985, in Kentucky, a cargo of ten kilos of cocaine mysteriously fell in the middle of a forest. Its owner, a drug trafficker, is found dead after he missed his parachute jump. A passing black bear ingests part of the package and dies soon after.

This framework could not be more ideal for a wacky comedy that wants to be a parodic homage to a whole tradition of man confronting nature. Around the news item, the screenplay knits a choral film in which the destinies of a dozen characters are linked who will cross paths with the cocaine-addicted bear: a single mother looking for her daughter who has gone to explore the forest, criminals in search of precious cargo, a forest ranger, police officers in the middle of an investigation…

From Tarantino (trendy Reservoir Dogs) To Jurassic Park, it’s a whole memory of cinema that the film thinks it summons, without ever being formally up to its references. Blame it on a lazy script and a laborious staging. Elizabeth Banks gets bogged down in her narrative, which is there only to justify the killer bear’s appearances in this wacky gore film far too self-aware to function. crazy bear turns out above all to be a false good idea which should never have left the bottom of its scriptwriter’s drawer.