Rewind back to 2006, when times were tough, government surveillance in the name of national security was upping the paranoia factor, the Middle East was in crisis, and an American president had started a war on both foreign soil and shaky grounds. Back then, Boots Riley was the brain trust behind the Coup, one of the best — and most politically charged — hip-hop groups to come out of the Bay Area. They’d just released their fifth album, Pick a Bigger Weapon, which included a shout-out to folks who liberated brand-name clothing and resold them to those who couldn’t afford them. “My shirt is from Stacey/My pants are from Rhonda,” Boots rapped. “My shoes came out the trunk of a baby blue Honda/My wardrobe’s in luck if something falls off a truck/If you’re looking for some leather, then go see Yolanda.” This funky, singsong ode to crime and the class struggle was called “I Love Boosters!”
You don’t let a pithy phrase like that go to waste by using it just once, and whether Riley lifted the title to suit an already-in-progress idea or tailored his sophomore feature around those three words is a chicken-egg argument for another day. What we can tell you is that I Love Boosters, the writer-director’s second feature, uses the lyrics of his old track as the jump-off point for another absurdist, go-for-broke satire involving race, social inequity, corporate shenanigans, conspiracy theories, and some truly sui generis cartoonish set pieces. It opened SXSW last night, because of course it did. This kind of protest pop art was made for the sort of film festival crowd that treats a raucous comedy like the second coming.
Regardless of where you see it — the movie officially hits theaters on May 22 — Riley’s newest Molotov cocktail continues the anything-goes modus operandi that the multihyphenate flexed in his debut Sorry to Bother You (2018) and his oddball Amazon series I’m a Virgo (2023). It starts off innocuously enough: A woman is bopping through a club, scoping out potential hook-ups. She’s Corvette (Keke Palmer), and once the lady finds her mark, she seduces him back to her place around the corner. He’s assuming things are about to get freaky, especially when she starts asking about his shoe size. What the guy isn’t expecting is the black market Nordstroms that Corvette has set up in this studio flat. She’s not after sex, at least not with him. Corvette’s looking to conduct some business. The dude leaves disappointed. And, naturally, with a marked-down pair of luxury loafers.
We’re soon introduced to the other members of Corvette’s booster crew, a.k.a. “the Velvet Gang,” which consists of the sturdy and practical Sade (Naomi Ackie, on a roll after the underrated Blink Twice and Sorry, Baby) and the slightly flighty Mariah (Zola‘s Taylour Paige). We also meet Corvette’s idol, a fast-fashion magnate named Christie Smith (Demi Moore) who’s considered the ultimate American success story. The booster’s dream is to follow in her footsteps. She doesn’t plan on stealing for a living and squatting in an abandoned Jackie’s Chicken restaurant forever.
Long story short, Corvette once submitted her idea for a jumpsuit with wing-like flaps to a contest that Smith was judging. It didn’t win. Then it shows up in Smith’s new fall line, to great acclaim. Corvette wants revenge. The Velvet Gang get jobs at one of Smith’s stores, which color-coordinates to an extreme degree. (You want something that’s not canary yellow? Go to another location. The retail outlet’s motto is: “Deal with it.”) They’re going to wait until their manager (Will Poulter) goes on his lunch break and then boost the entire inventory. Except, when the trio and their fellow employees are called into a one-minute meeting, they return to find the place has been completely ransacked. Who beat them to it? And how did they clear the place out so quickly?
Keke Palmer in ‘I Love Boosters.’
NEON
Any attempt at trying to explain what happens next isn’t exactly helpful in terms of capturing the mondo gonzo vibe that Riley utilizes to tell his story of radicalized retail Robin Hoods. Which is definitely how he sees Corvette and her band of merry thieves, as community-service outlaws fighting against the tide of late capitalism and the tyranny of high-priced, brand-named status symbols; they’re live-action versions of “all them hard working women/Who risk jail-time just to make them a living” from his song. The situation is not that simple, of course. And Boots knows how complicated all of it is, especially once you iris back and look at how exploitation is in the DNA of this industry from top to bottom. When Riley noted in 2006 that “this stuff might phase ya/This ain’t the way society raised ya,” he then proceeded to note how these businesses were profiting off of cheap child labor overseas. Boots wasn’t saying two wrongs make a right. The musician just wanted you to pay attention to every one of the wrongs out there.
Riley hasn’t changed his tune in that respect. If anything, he’s tripled down, and I Love Boosters is brimming with a righteous sense of fury, as well as a hell of a lotta ideas about capitalism, social justice, and the powers that be. It also features a San Francisco skyscraper built at a 45-degree angle, Palmer sporting a pink sweatsuit stuffed with swag that makes her look like Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man, stop-motion puppets, and someone running with Hanna-Barbera cartoon legs. A machine that can transport people through space becomes a plot point. So does a pyramid scheme, as well as recurring news headlines like “Upstanding Community Member Loves Freedom of Lower Pay.” The mix of academic-level intellectualism and gross-out outrageousness fits the mood Riley wants to conjure. This may be the only movie you see this year that namedrops dialectical materialism and showcases a demon who’s an expert at cunnilingus.
It’s a lot, but that’s Boots style. The Adult Swim vibe is strong here — when Eric Andre drops by for a late cameo, you’re simply left wondering why it took him so long to show up — and the satire is sharp in the way that glass shattered from a shotgun blast and is flying every which way counts as sharp. This isn’t for everyone’s tastes. Then again, neither was Sorry to Bother You‘s mix of critical commentary and absurdist comedy, and like that film, I Love Boosters takes a wilder, big-picture swerve in its third act.
Still, you have to admire the fact that Riley is weaponizing his humor and using it to brusquely jostle your brain by any ridiculous means necessary. The movie ends on a note that reminds you of the power of civil disobedience and the need to not just speak truth to power but to fight it when it no longer serves the public at large. “All on our own, we survive this with slyness,” Riley rapped at the conclusion of his song of the same name. “But when we come together, all our fashion is flyness.” The film doesn’t just pilfer that thesis as well, however. It expands on it.
