I LOVE BOOSTERS:
BOOTS RILEY’S FRANTIC AND CHAOTIC CRIME FLICK!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: **** out of 4
NEON
Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, and Keke Palmer in I Love Boosters
A group of fashion shoplifting criminals targets the business of Demi Moore (A Few Good Men, G.I. Jane, The Substance) in I Love Boosters, the second film from director Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You). I saw Sorry to Bother You shortly after it came out in 2018, and I never did a full review of it. I’ll give my quick thoughts on his first film before diving into this.
I initially didn’t get into it when I first saw it and was completely unprepared for how weird it becomes, but I thought more about it and appreciated the themes surrounding its bizarreness and upon rewatching it for the first time since, I freaking love Sorry to Bother You now and consider it one of the most unique comedies in recent years. I mean, a movie about a black telemarketer using a white voice and finding out the company he works for is turning people into genetically enhanced horses as an allegory for slave labor has to get points for originality and absurdness.
Now that I’ve grown to appreciate Riley’s previous film and I have an idea of what to expect with his filmmaking style a little, I was all-in for I Love Boosters. The movie looked pretty wild from the trailers, but surely it wouldn’t be as insane as the film about workers turning into mutant horse people…oh, it is!
I Love Boosters is fucking crazy and does what Sorry to Bother You did for the workplace for the fashion industry. Sure, there aren’t any people transforming into horses in this movie, but there’s still plenty of absolute insanity and surreal ideas to make you laugh, scratch your head, and keep your eyes glued to the chaos-filled screen.
The film follows Corvette (Keke Palmer-Nope, One of Them Days, Good Fortune), Sade (Naomi Ackie-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Blink Twice, Mickey 17), and Mariah (Taylour Paige-Zola, The Toxic Avenger (2023), Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F) better known as the Velvet Gang, a group of criminals who regularly shoplift from the Metro Designers fashion chain run by designer Christie Smith (Moore) and sell the stolen clothes at a discount to make ends meet. But when Christie publicly lambasts the Velvet Gang as “Low class urban bitches”, Corvette, Sade, and Mariah, join forces with Metro Designers employee fighting against poor working conditions, Violeta (Eiza González-Baby Driver, Alita: Battle Angel, Ambulance) and another mysterious clothing criminal known as Jianhu (Poppy Liu-Hacks, iCarly, The Tiger’s Apprentice) to not only steal Christie’s fashion, but take down her entire business.
The film also stars LaKeith Stanfield (Sorry to Bother You, Uncut Gems, Judas and the Black Messiah) as Pinky Ring Guy, Will Poulter (The Revenant, Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3, Warfare) as Grayson, Don Cheadle (Ocean’s trilogy, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Flight) as Dr. Jack, and Kerris Dorsey (Brothers & Sisters, Moneyball, Ray Donovan) as Jamie.
Overall, I Love Boosters is an absolutely wild ride that finds Boots Riley once again subverting audiences’ expectations with what kind of movie he’s making, whether it’s about a black telemarketer or a group of “Boosters” sabotaging the business of a fashion giant. It’s pure, unhinged insanity projected onto the screen…and I was laughing and loving every minute of it, which is crazy considering how I did not fully appreciate Sorry to Bother You until I revisited it recently.
This is a hard movie to talk about without going into spoilers, and I do not want to ruin any of the shocking and weird moments in the film for you because it’s best to just let the movie play out and have you react naturally. It definitely has that Sorry to Bother You tone when it comes to the humor and its commentary with visual gags, bizarre situations, and constantly leaning into the strange and unusual.
One thing I admire about Riley’s filmmaking is that even before he drops the crazy bombshells on us, the worlds he creates are already pretty odd, even when they’re supposed to be a normal setting. Demi Moore’s character has an office that’s literally tilted as if she’s being filmed by the cameraman who shot Battlefield: Earth for absolutely no reason, and keep in mind, this is before all the insane shit goes down, which leads to a lot of great physical and visual gags in a short amount of time.
The plot is about as surreal as Sorry to Bother You, where it starts off being about one thing (In this film’s case, a group of burglars trying to take down a fashion mogul) and, halfway through, it stops trying to be a real movie and goes straight into pure mindfuckery. If this were any other movie from a different director, I would normally see this as a negative, but because Boots Riley himself is such an oddball with an incredibly active imagination, I admire his craftsmanship and how he brings his unhinged and crazy ideas to the screen in ways that could even make Tim Burton blush.
All the performances are great, with Keke Palmer and Demi Moore being absolute scene-stealers, Palmer as a Booster who’s also an aspiring fashion designer, and despite all the insanity that happens, it brings a lot of humanity and sometimes heart to the film. Demi Moore is a lot of fun as a snooty, successful fashion designer who you just want to see have her empire crumble by the end, like an actually evil version of Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestley from The Devil Wears Prada, and just as witty as her to boot.
I Love Boosters continues to surprise me with Boots Riley’s growing filmography as he continues to take simple premises we’ve seen before and completely turn them on their heads in the most chaotic and bonkers ways imaginable. It’s funny, engaging, and still retaining plenty of his signature weirdness, absolutely worth watching if you know what you’re getting into.
I Love Boosters…and I also love this movie!
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