In 1985,
drug smuggler Andrew C. Thornton II drops a shipment of
cocaine from his plane. He attempts to parachute out with the last drug-filled duffel bag, but knocks himself unconscious on the doorframe and falls to his death. In the
Chattahoochee–Oconee National Forest, a large female
American black bear eats some of the cocaine. Becoming highly aggressive, it attacks hikers Elsa and Olaf, killing the former. Andrew’s body lands in
Knoxville, Tennessee, where he is identified by Bob, a local detective. He concludes that the cocaine is likely from
St. Louis drug kingpin Syd White, and the remainder is missing. Meanwhile, Syd orders his widowed son Eddie and
fixer Daveed to help him retrieve the cocaine. In northeast
Georgia, middle schooler Dee Dee lives with her mother, nurse Sari. Dee Dee skips school with her best friend Henry in order to paint a picture of a waterfall in the forest. On the trail to the falls, they find a lost brick of cocaine and ingest some, before being attacked by the bear. Eddie and Daveed arrive in Georgia to recover the cocaine, as does Bob. At the forest station, Daveed gets into a fight with local delinquents Ponytail, Vest and Stache. He subdues the trio, and Stache takes Daveed and Eddie to recover some of the cocaine he stashed in a gazebo. Sari searches for the children with Liz, a park ranger, and Peter, a wildlife activist. In the forest, they find Henry hiding in a tree. The bear attacks, injuring Liz and killing Peter. Sari and Henry flee deeper into the forest, while Liz runs back to the station to call for help. She accidentally kills Ponytail, and the bear kills Vest. Paramedics Beth and Tom arrive and rescue Liz after a brief skirmish with the bear. They flee with Liz in an ambulance, but the bear pursues and jumps into the vehicle. The bear kills Tom, while Liz falls out of the ambulance and is dragged to death on the road, and Beth dies when the ambulance crashes into a tree. Sari and Henry discover that Dee Dee left a trail of paint and follow it. Stache leads Daveed and Eddie to the gazebo, but they encounter Bob there with the stashed duffel of cocaine, and Bob wounds Daveed. The bear appears, but Bob distracts it with a bag of cocaine. Syd arrives, along with Bob’s corrupt police partner Reba, and fatally shoots Bob, while Stache escapes. Sari and Henry find Olaf, who is mourning Elsa. He leads them to Dee Dee's hiding place in the bear's cave, along with its two cubs. Olaf leaves and is killed by the bear. Syd, Eddie, Daveed, and Reba find the cave, which leads out to a ledge behind the falls, but Reba chooses to leave. When the bear returns to the cave, Sari, Henry, and Dee Dee jump into the water below, followed by Eddie and Daveed, and they all survive. However, Syd refuses to leave the bag of cocaine found in the cave. He wounds the bear, but fails to kill it and is
disemboweled by the bear and her cubs. Later, Stache hitchhikes to New York with a duffel bag of cocaine, while Eddie, accompanied by Daveed and Bob's dog, reunites with his son. == Cast ==