No./7 Beyond the chaos of Cocaine Bear
ELIZABETH BANKS on why her thriller is much more than a Pablo Escobear rampage
The film features Ray Liotta’s final performance;
WHEN IS A film about a bear on a drug-fuelled murder binge not just a film about a bear on a drug-fuelled murder binge? The answer: when it’s a metaphor for the US war on drugs, of course. “In the mid ’80s, there was this big reaction to the crack epidemic in American society that actually created so many other monsters,” says Elizabeth Banks, revealing to Empire some of the ways in which, when it comes to 2023’s wildest-sounding movie, there may be more than meets the ursine eye. “There’s a bit of allegory in here, as well as true chaos,” she laughs.