COCAINE BEAR : Tuesday 28th February 2023.

I saw the M Rated 'COCAINE BEAR' earlier this week, and this American dark comedy action film is Co-Produced and Directed by the American Actress, Producer, Writer and Director Elizabeth Banks in her third feature film making effort following 2015's 'Pitch Perfect 2' and 2019's 'Charlie's Angels'. Released in the US and Australia last week, the film has so far grossed US$34M from a production budget of US$35M and has garnered mixed or average Reviews. 

This film is inspired by real events that occurred in December 1985, and opens up with Andrew C. Thornton II (Matthew Rhys) hauling duffel bags filled with cocaine from his light aircraft. As he is preparing himself to parachute out of the aircraft carrying a duffel bag loaded with coke, he inadvertently knocks himself out on the door frame, falls out of said aeroplane and lands in a crumpled heap, very dead, in Knoxville, Tennessee. The body of Thornton is recognised by Bob (Isiah Whitlock Jnr.) a local Detective who deduces that the drug stash he was carrying is from a Syd White, operating out of St. Louis. In the meantime, somewhere in the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia, an American Black Bear consumes some of the cocaine and as a consequence becomes very aggressive and sets upon two hikers, Elsa (Hannah Hoekstra) and her partner Olaf (Kristofer Hivju), killing Elsa. 

Middle schooler Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) lives with her mum, Sari (Keri Russell), a nurse. Dee Dee bunks of school with her best friend Henry (Christian Convery) to paint a picture of the falls in the forest. On the trail to the falls, the pair finds a lost brick of cocaine, and try eating some before they are attacked by the bear. 

Sari goes into the forest to search for the kids with Park Ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) and Peter (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), a wildlife activist. The three find Henry half way up a tree clinging on for dear life, hiding from the bear. The bear attacks, first of all homing in on Henry, while Peter stumbles through a pile of cocaine, and slashing Liz on the butt cheek in the process. Attracted to a cocaine-coated Peter, who has now also climbed a nearby tree, the bear clambers up and kills him, ignoring Henry. While the bear dispenses with Peter, Henry climbs down and he and Sari flee deeper into the forest, and Liz sends for help.

In St. Louis, Syd (Ray Liotta in one of his final film appearances before his untimely death in May 2022, aged 67) sends his fixer Daveed (O'Shea Jackson) to recover the remaining cocaine. Daveed travels to Georgia with Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich), Syd's son, who is depressed following the death of his wife and has abandoned his son. They arrive in Georgia, as does Bob. At the forest station, Daveed gets into a brawl with the Duchamps gang, three delinquents who cause trouble in the forest, overpowering them easily. One of the members, Stache (Aaron Holliday), takes Daveed and Eddie to recover some of the cocaine he stashed in a gazebo. 

Liz arrives back at the station, pursued by the bear. Liz accidentally shoots one of the Duchamps in the head killing him outright before the bear slaughters the other. Paramedics Beth (Kahyun Kim) and Tom (Scott Seiss) arrive and collect Liz who has been further slashed to the shoulder after a brief skirmish with the bear. They leave with Liz in an ambulance, but the bear pursues and jumps into the back of the vehicle, which ultimately results in the death of all three.

Sari and Henry discover that Dee Dee has left them a trail of paint and clothing, with which they are able to track her. Daveed and Eddie arrive at the gazebo with Stache, but find Bob there stranded on the roof with a duffel bag stashed full of cocaine. The bear appears but Bob distracts it with the bag of coke which it swallows whole. Bob is suddenly fatally shot by Syd, who reveals that he is under a huge amount of pressure by his superiors to retrieve the cocaine. 

Sari and Henry come across Olaf mourning over the loss of Elsa. He leads them to Dee Dee’s hiding place in a cave containing the bears two cubs, revealing that the bear is a mother. Olaf leaves and is killed by the bear returning to her cave. Syd, Eddie, and Daveed also find the cave, which leads out to a ledge behind the falls. The bear returns to the cave. Sari, Henry, and Dee Dee jump into the water below to safety, followed by Eddie and Daveed - who have chosen to quit the drug business together - and they all survive. However, Syd refuses to leave the duffel bag of cocaine found in the cave. He shoots and wounds the bear but is unsuccessful in killing it and is shortly thereafter disemboweled by the bear and her cubs.

With 'Cocaine Bear' what you're gonna get is exactly what's written on the side of the tin - a bear stoned on cocaine, just like those other aptly named movies 'Snakes on a Plane' and 'Sharknado' for instance. Director Elizabeth Banks takes a lot of liberties with this story inspired by real events - sure an American black bear did consume a duffel bag full of cocaine dropped from a light aeroplane somewhere over north Georgia in late 1985 but that's where the similarities end. The real 'Cocaine Bear' did not go on a murderous rampage and no one got killed as a result, and the bear wound up dead three months later, found beside dozens of opened containers of cocaine. All of that said, this film is entertaining enough with the emphasis more on comedy than on horror, although there is plenty of blood and gore to satisfy the gore hounds amongst us, but the plot is silly and contrived despite the A-list cast doing the best they can with what they've been given and the lean 95 minute run time just about ensures this film does not outstay its welcome. 

'Cocaine Bear' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

JUST MERCY : Wednesday 5th February 2020.

'JUST MERCY' is an M Rated American true story legal drama which I saw at my local multiplex earlier this week and is Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton in his fourth feature film after 2012's 'I Am Not a Hipster', 2013's 'Short Term 12' and 2017's 'The Glass Castle'. Following this outing Cretton is slated to Direct 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' for the MCU Phase 4 due for release in 2021 and currently in pre-production. The film saw its World Premier screening at TIFF in early September last year, went on limited release on Christmas Day in the US (to qualify for awards season recognition), has garnered generally favourable Reviews so far, and has taken US$38M at the Box Office before its much wider release from mid-January. 'Just Mercy' is based on the 2014 memoir of the same name, written by Bryan Stevenson.

After some initial scene setting and a quick back story, the main thrust of this film moves to 1989 when young Harvard law graduate Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) relocates himself to Alabama to help fight poor down trodden and often abused people who more often than not are unable to fund proper legal representation for themselves. Meeting up with Eva Ansley (Brie Larson) he forms the 'Equal Justice Initiative' in Montgomery, Alabama, initially operating out of Eva's home before moving into a more appropriate office environment.

Stevenson then travels to Holman State Prison in Atmore, Alabama to meet with a number of its death row inmates for whom the legal system has failed them. There he meets with inmates Herbert Richardson (Rob Morgan), Anthony Ray Hinton (O'Shea Jackson) and Walter 'Johnny D' McMillan (Jamie Foxx), amongst a few others. He offers to help all three, but McMillan's cause seems to be the most compelling as the case against him is full of holes.

McMillan on the face of it, appears to have been wrongfully imprisoned for the 1986 murder of eighteen year old Ronda Morrison in Monroeville, Alabama. His conviction was wrongfully obtained, based on police coercion and perjury, and in the 1988 trial, the judge imposed the death penalty, even though the jury imposed a sentence of life imprisonment. Stevenson examines the evidence and discovers that it hinges entirely on the testimony of convicted criminal Ralph Myers (Tim Blake Nelson), who provided a highly self-contradictory testimony in exchange for a lighter sentence in his own upcoming trial at the time.

Stevenson's first move is to visit the local prosecutor Tommy Chapman (Rafe Spall) for assistance, but Chapman dismisses him without even looking at his notes, saying that as far as he is concerned justice has been served and it is his job to keep his towns people and his local community safe. Having drawn a blank with Chapman, Stevenson then drives out to the McMillan family homestead on the outskirts of town. There he meets with McMillan family friend Darnell Houston (Darrell Britt-Gibson) who says that he was working with Ralph Myers in an auto workshop the morning of the murder and as such there is no way that Myers could have witnessed the events that unfolded that fateful day. Furthermore, the whole of the McMillan family and extended family swear that Johnny D was in fact at a fish fry that same morning, but that too was not accounted for in his defence. Darnell's testimony plus previously undisclosed or obviously overlooked facts would cause the prosecution's case to fall apart. But when Stevenson submits Darnell's testimony, police quickly arrest him for perjury. However, while Stevenson is able to get the perjury charges dropped, Darnell is intimidated into refusing to testify in court for fear of further reprisals against him.

Bryan then meets with Myers in prison. Eventually Myers admits that his testimony was coerced from him after police played to his childhood fear of burning and threatened to have him executed by electric chair. Myers was as a seven year old boy badly burned when his pyjamas caught fire wile he slept and has facial and upper body scars as a result, and says that he can still smell his skin burning, a smell that he is familiar with too from his experiences with prison inmates executed by the electric chair. 

Stevenson then appeals to the local court to grant McMillan a retrial, and successfully convinces Myers to recant his testimony on the stand, but regardless the judge refuses to grant a retrial. Distraught, Bryan vents his frustrations about the case to Eva. He appears on '60 Minutes' in an attempt to generate public support in McMillan's favour, and then appeals to the Supreme Court of Alabama. The Supreme Court overturns the circuit court's decision, and grants McMillan his retrial. 

Stevenson then seeks to have the charges completely dismissed. He later visits Chapman at his home and tries to convince him to join him in his motion, but Chapman steadfastly refuses and angrily orders him off his property. On the day of the motion, Stevenson appeals to the judge. Chapman surprisingly, given the almost overwhelming evidence presented agrees to join him in his motion and the case is dismissed. With no prosecution, the judge declares that with immediate effect McMillan is free to go, and so after six years Johnny D is finally reunited with his family, a free man. 

In the closing credits, we learn that McMillan remained friends with Stevenson until his death in 2013. A follow-up investigation into Ronda Morrison's death confirmed McMillan's innocence and speculated that a white man was likely responsible, although to this day the case has never been solved. Furthermore, Sheriff Tate (Michael Harding) who at the time arrested McMillan just because he looked guilty and was ultimately responsible for either concealing or completely ignoring the evidence that would have conclusively proven that McMillan was innocent, was elected to the office of Sheriff a further six times. Meanwhile Stevenson successfully had Anthony Ray Hinton's case overturned and after 28 years on Alabam's death row was finally freed in 2015. Herbert Richardson, was not so lucky, and he was executed by electric chair on 18th August 1989, and was one of 66 people to have been executed in Alabama since the resumption of capital punishment, most of whom would not have been executed if they had received timely and effective legal aid and advice.

'Just Mercy' is an important real life story of racial prejudice, the rich and poor divide, and the inequalities inflicted upon man just because of the way he may look, or the colour of his skin. Lesson's that still ring true today, just as much as they did thirty years ago when this story started to unfold. Jordan gives a nuanced, understated and restrained performance as the considered, tenacious and patient Stevenson, and Foxx gives arguably one of his best performances in years. This is a slow burning film, that Director Cretton allows the story to speak for itself without diving into dramatic over the top poetic licence territory, and my research of the Equal Justice Initiative and Bryan Stevenson seems to indicate that this story is faithfully recreated keeping largely to the facts as they unfolded. This film has so far collected seven award wins and another eight nominations from around the festivals and awards circuit, and the importance of this film cannot be underestimated. Worth the price of your cinema ticket for sure.

'Just Mercy' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON - Tuesday 15th September 2015.

I'm a product of the 80's and I was aware in the latter half of that decade of the emergence of a radical new band of Gangsta Rappers blazing a trail across the music scenes telling in no uncertain terms the stories of their lives, the violence, the injustice, the hardship and their life experiences - they were Niggaz Wit Attitude (N.W.A.) and hailed from the south Los Angeles suburb of Compton. 25+ years on the story of these groundbreaking yet notorious boys from da hood is told in F. Gary Gray's biopic of their lives in 'STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON' which I saw this week.



Director F. Gary Gray has crafted a strong telling here of the rise and fall of that revolutionary California hip hop group that rose to prominence for mostly the wrong reasons given their outspoken vocals, the messages in their lyrics, their views and opinions, their frequent run-ins with the Police and the party hi-jinx as their star status began to rise. Gray also Produces, as does Ice Cube and Dr. Dre and the film was made for US$28M and at the time of writing this review Box Office receipts have topped US$180M.

As the film opens it's 1986 and friends Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), Ice Cube (O'Shea Jackson), Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins), DJ Yella (Neil Brown), MC Ren (Aldis Hodge), and Arabian Prince (Brandon Lafourche) form the band N.W.A. and release their first single under their own label, Ruthless Records. Spotted by has been music manager Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti) he throws Eazy-E a line about how he can open doors, pave the way and put the newly formed act on the map. After the small time concert circuit in their very early days they begin to develop a following and are eventually picked up by Priority Records who provide the resources for the band to cut their first album - 'Straight Outta Compton'.

Such is the success of their first album, that the group embark on a national tour playing to larger crowds in larger venues and increasingly living large, although at this point it is only Eazy-E who has a formalised contract with Heller - none of the others do not, which in itself starts to create friction and in-fighting. At a concert in Detroit, the band is told by the local Police not to sing their smash hit 'Fuck tha Police' fearful that this will incite a disturbance and potentially a riot. Needless to say, the boys do, having been egged on by the crowd, and yes, a riot ensues during which our N.W.A. are cuffed up and thrown in the back of a Police truck on trumped up charges, which they dodge of course and are released.

Shortly after, things come to a head between Heller and Ice Cube resulting in the latter's resignation from the group to pursue his own singing and acting career. Ice Cube's first solo album - 'AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted' was released in mid-1990 and met with big critical and commercial success outstripping the reception received from the earlier N.W.A. offering 'Straight Outta Compton'. What followed was a tit for tat campaign between N.W.A. and Cube with each side dissing each other in their lyrics resulting in more acrimony, more ill feeling and more angst between the former friends who drifted further and further apart as a result.

As N.W.A. cut their second album 'Niggaz4Life', Dr. Dre becomes more disillusioned with Heller and gets entwined with Suge Knight (R. Marcos Taylor) and the two form 'Death Row Records'. With his new freedoom and seemingly the world at his feet Dre records his own solo album 'The Chronic' released in late 1992 as well as Producing new up & coming talent - the likes of which included Snoop Dog and Tupac Shakur. Dre's lyrics too on his new solo album diss Eazy-E, leaving the latter out in the cold with no new revenue stream, a band in disarray and mounting debts. This leads to a confrontation with Heller, at which Eazy-E fires Heller for embezzling funds from the bands coffers.

A chance meeting at a nightclub between Eazy-E and Ice Cube allow the two to reconcile their differences and talk about the band reforming out of the shadow of Heller now. Next up Eazy-E reaches out to Dr. Dre who also agrees to getting the guys together, and soon afterwards the are reunited with DJ Ren and MC Yella to begin work on a new album. Eazy-E though is not in the best of health and collapses at the house with his friends. Fast forward to a hospital bed and Eazy-E is confronted with the news by the Doctor that he has tested positive from the AIDS virus HIV and has six months to live. One by one, his fiends come by to visit, show support, and rally round before his death in March 1995. The film wraps with Dr. Dre confronting an out of control Suge Knight at the 'Death Row' Studios saying he is done and is walking way to form his own label - 'Aftermath Entertainment'. Subsequently Dre signs up the likes of 50 Cent, Eminem, Busta Rhymes and Kendrick Lamar, and goes on to create Beats Electronics which he sold to Apple in mid-2014 for US$3B. Ice Cube pursued a successful film and television acting and music career that is still going strong today.

I said at the beginning that I was aware of N.W.A. back in the late 80's & early 90's, but, was never a follower of this genre of music. However, I found this a fascinating story and got sucked in by the strong performances, the arc of how the boys from da hood grew from nothing but found their voice through their experiences, the prejudices, the violence, the guns, the drugs, the culture in which they grew up that came out in their music and lyrics, and ultimately found an audience . . . and a very significant one at that. But within ten years they came and went - passed away, moved on, faded out and some with greater success than others.

This is well told; well acted with solid performances especially from those portraying Dre, Cube, Eazy-E and Heller; and as well the music paints a picture of the social commentary of the time - gun crime, racial and social unrest, Police violence, injustice and prejudice, AIDS, sex, drugs and rock & roll, and the Rodney King riots. At 147 minutes this is a long film which toward the end I felt a little drawn out and perhaps overly long, and the stories of how MC Ren, DJ Yella and Arabian Prince contributed in those early years and after were skirted over and had little significance over their more prominent band members.

That said, this is worth checking out, and for anyone around in the 80's and 90's who remembers that era and lived through it this is a great slice of nostalgia and well delivered.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-