It seems as if actress-turned-director Elizabeth Banks (Charlie's Angels and Pitch Perfect 2) is taking her inspiration from Joe Dante, the horror comedy filmmaker behind cult classics, such as Piranha (1978) and Gremlins (1984). She clearly wants this film to be in the vein of animals run amuck and cartoonishly killing people. This film could also be grouped in the same category as titles like Anaconda (1997) or Snakes on a Plane (2006). It's a silly thriller that pits humans against some super-charged apex predators.
Inspired by the true story of Andrew C. Thornton II, Thornton was a drug smuggler from Kentucky. He flew drugs from Colombia onboard his small Cessna 404 airplane. We see Thornton, played by Matthew Rhys (The Americans), doing exactly that in the opening scene. At first, Thornton's story felt like Barry Seal's, as depicted in the film American Made (2017), but quickly this one turns. In 1985, something went wrong with his flight and Thornton had to drop duffel bags filled with cocaine, worth millions, out his plane. Those bags landed in northern Georgia where a huge black bear ingested it.
Ray Liotta (Marriage Story and Goodfellas) in his first posthumous, theatrical release plays Sydney White, a drug kingpin in what's called a bluegrass conspiracy or bluegrass mafia. He works to smuggle drugs from Colombia into the United States. Here, the Thornton character was one of his employees. When Thornton loses the drugs in the forests of Georgia, Sydney sends his son and one of his enforcers to recover the drugs or else the Colombians will kill Sydney and his family.
Unfortunately, a myriad of forces are operating to prevent Sydney from getting those drugs. The main force is the wild, titular animal that has found those scattered duffel bags filled with bricks of the drug in question. The savage beast has already become violently addicted and is lashing out super aggressively at any person in the vicinity.
As with any horror film, particularly slashers, the joy comes from watching people get murdered in increasingly ridiculous ways. For me, the bear attack in The Revenant (2015) has become a standard with which to compare any bear attack depicted on film. There's nothing here as visceral. There's hardly any shots of the bear tearing into human flesh. Banks' film doesn't shy away from the blood and gore, dismembered limbs flung here and there, along with a lot of red splattering, but the tone though is not torturous as it was in The Revenant but instead over-the-top comedic.
Keri Russell (The Americans and Felicity) plays Sari, a nurse and single mother living in northern Georgia, near the Chattahoochee National Forest. She has a prepubescent daughter, probably around 12 or so. She has a good relationship with her child, but there seems to be a bit of an issue with Sari dating a co-worker that her daughter may or may not be ready to handle. It doesn't matter because her character becomes inconsequential. Every scene with Sari, her daughter and her daughter's best male friend feel like padding for the runtime.
O'Shea Jackson Jr. (Den of Thieves and Straight Outta Compton) co-stars as Daveed, the enforcer who works for Sydney and who is sent to retrieve the lost drugs. Like with the others, he eventually has to confront the coked up animal. Jackson is the son of famous rapper, Ice Cube who co-starred in Anaconda, 25 years ago, which makes comparisons to Anaconda even more appropriate. Daveed though is the most interesting character in this whole film.
Along with Daveed is Sydney's son, Eddie, played by Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story and Hail, Caesar!), a depressed mobster, heartbroken over a recent loss. The relationship between Daveed and Eddie is the one that feels more vital. The scenes involving Sari and her family only seem to detract from what should have been more scenes developing the friendship or lack thereof between Daveed and Eddie. Jackson and Ehrenreich light up the screen together and should have been this film's main focus.
There is a great action sequence involving a paramedic van and Margo Martindale (The Americans and Justified), which is probably the most thrilling scene in the whole narrative. By contrast, the final sequence feels rather lame, as it's awkwardly and clunkily staged next to a waterfall that made a sequence next to a waterfall in Anaconda feel almost like a masterpiece.
Rated R for bloody violence, gore, drug content and language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 35 mins.
In theaters.
