Boots Riley’s “I Love Boosters” is an enrapturing, gonzo, euphoric film; a street-level science fiction tale that feels handcrafted with love and purpose. From the first few seconds, it announces itself as something with intent, a statement, a colorful declaration of art, race, and class wrapped in a comedy as bouncy and delightful as it is profound. Riley’s films, this being his second after the masterful “Sorry to Bother You”, are winking screeds, playful manifestos, calls for revolution in candy colored wrapping. Nobody is doing it like him, and frankly, nobody dares try. Audiences are in a wilderness for bold, adult filmmaking on a grand scale, parched for stories that don’t provide simple escapism but instead offer something to aspire to, our better angels empowered to overcome the mechanized slop that has overtaken our shared reality, where each of us is both consumer and product. In the past few weeks alone, several of the largest media companies in the world have unveiled their own hundred-million-dollar behemoths into the public sphere, glossy versions of the toy-hawking cartoons that are toothless at best and vampiric at worst. Turn your brain off at the door, they say, and accept what some faceless committee deems worthy of your intelligence; a laser light show stuffed to bursting with regurgitational humor and simplistic morality tales that delivered with the warmth of an eviction notice. “I Love Boosters” sees these challengers and faces them down with a smile on its face and a Molotov cocktail in its back pocket, the film being Boots Riley’s commiseration with the whole of the human race. This film is angry, as many of us are, yet it is no sermon. Instead, it is a hilarious call to arms rife with stop motion, demon soul sucking, and absurdist humor tailor-made for the working people of the world, reminding us all that while we have been sold an insidious bill of goods by those whose futures are secured by the forfeiting of our own, the power is ours to demand back what was taken and to rebuild a world that is wholly our own.
“I Love Boosters” follows a team of “boosters” called The Velvet Gang, shoplifters who take high-end fashion and flip it at a discounted price. Corvette (Keke Palmer) isn’t only in this racket for the money. She’s a fashion designer who worships the artistry of the magnate whose stores they steal from, Christie Smith (Demi Moore). While caught between her dreams of designing and her current living situation in an abandoned chicken restaurant, Corvette and her partners, Mariah (Taylour Paige) and Sade (Naomi Ackie), are beginning to garner the attention of Christie, who means to crush them by any means necessary. If that wasn’t enough, Corvette soon learns that her own designs were somehow stolen by Christie and are now the cornerstone of a new line at stores across the Bay Area. Fueled now by revenge, The Velvet Gang sets out to steal not just a few items but an entire store’s worth of clothes from Christie, instigating a heist with “Ocean’s Eleven” worthy precision. But, something happens, something of the science fiction variety that flips the Velvet Gang for a loop and turns the entire film’s reality upside down. The world is much larger than they realize, and so is the reach of Christie Smith’s perverse need for global conquest. The gang, who were once simple boosters, are now entrusted with a higher purpose: to take down this fashionista hydra not only for their own enrichment but for the betterment of oppressed peoples around the world.
“I Love Boosters” is playing while the new “Masters of the Universe” film, funded by Amazon, is entering theaters. Seeing these two films back to back on the same day, it’s telling how each has a fascination with the idea of power, of nuance, and of the inherent morality of existence. “Masters of the Universe”, based on the Mattel toy line and subsequent cartoon show from the 80s, is a spit-shined product pre-packaged for purchase meant for, if not the children, certainly the aging Millennials who once upon a time would be eagerly spirited away to mythical Eternia every day after school. You can tell that the film is meant more for them than their children because, beyond the flash and dazzlement of a bulked-up man with a big sword slashing his way through brightly costumed, and inventively conceived, ghouls under the rule of Jared Leto’s CGI skeleton faced wizard, the remaining runtime is filled with references to long-forgotten characters from the show, internet memes, and more fellatio jokes than you’d expect. The central force of influence in the film is “The Power of Greyskull”, which can be harnessed by a chosen champion; in this case, the Prince of Greyskull, Adam (Nicholas Galitzine), who was exiled on Earth to avoid the wrath of Skeletor. While on Earth, we find that Adam has become an HR representative, learning the finer points of corporate double speak and team building, which comes back later in the film as the foundation upon which his hero’s arc is built. This is a surprising source of ethical goodness for the universe’s savior until you remember the parent company from which the film was extracted. For the Bezos-brained producers of the film, it’s almost understandable that true human yearning, desire, and hope are cold equations that are explainable via a PowerPoint slideshow after a boxed lunch. What artistry THAT film holds is sanded down into concavity, leaving in its crater the shadow specter of what it presents as: a story of heroism and justice in the face of tyranny, where the true face of evil is the mean-looking skull guy, easily recognizable and uncomplicated. For a film that gives lip service to the idea that true power comes from understanding and empathy, it very quickly kicks all that nonsense to the curb in favor of CG sword fights and more sex jokes. Honestly, it makes you wonder why they ever bothered in the first place.
“I Love Boosters” places the power of change in the hands of those who feel the smallest, the most insignificant, whose commiseration with others is their greatest strength. Once upon a time, that was the subject of the movies that changed generations; movies whose offspring are now little more than brand deposits meant for maximum market retention, faceless entities eliciting little more than bemused fascination and certainly no affection. The Velvet Gang, in contrast, is easy to fall in love with because they are us: people with dreams and hopes for a better future, just trying to get by. In an early sequence of the film, Sade convinces Corvette to join her at a personal enrichment seminar in an abandoned furniture store that turns out to be a poorly masked MLM scheme led by a rotund demagogue (A very game Don Cheadle). While played for absurdity, the joke is never on our heroes; the world is joke enough. A later sequence sees Corvette able to sneak into the penthouse office of Christie Smith, only to find that the office itself is leaned at a perpetual 45% angle. This incongruity is never acknowledged, never commented upon, yet remains a hurdle to her ultimate escape from the room in a bit of slapstick comedy that is perhaps funnier than anything I’ve seen in a movie all year. As said before, Riley isn’t preaching; he’s showing, the mark of an artist who cares not for beating audiences over the head, preferring instead to show his cards for us to make of what we will. What’s wildest of all is that the message of the film is not in any way radical; it’s only human, a reminder that even in the face of overwhelming odds and forces beyond our understanding, it is people, not a person, who hold the ultimate power.
“I Love Boosters” is a breath of fresh air, a bespoke time at the movies that is as gorgeous to look at as it is easy to laugh at. The greatest of films show us something that we have never seen before, present us with something we know in our bones in a way we have never heard before, and make us perhaps think in new ways we have never thought before. Boots Riley, as a soothsayer to the unrequited feelings broiling at the edges of everyday people, is perhaps the best of his generation at harnessing the nuances of anger, love, revolution, and art. The world will not change on its own, his films argue, and sometimes we might lose ground in our squabbling. But if we come together, justice is attainable, the righting of the world is within our grasp. It just won’t be handed over freely. Sometimes, to get what you deserve, you simply have to boost it.
Remember that you have the power.
You’ll be glad you did.
“I Love Boosters” is playing at Prytania Canal Place and The Broad Theater.
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