I Love Boosters is the second film from hip-hop-artist-turned-writer/director and stylish hat connoisseur Boots Riley. It’s a delightfully absurd, candy-colored Looney Toons-flavored middle finger to capitalism about Corvette (Keke Palmer), Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige), a group of struggling young women living in poverty known as “boosters”, who steal expensive designer clothes and sell them to people on the cheap. This puts them on the radar of the Elon Musk techbro coded fashion designer & mogul Christie Smith (Demi Moore), who steals other people’s ideas and culture and then sells it back to them. She makes it her mission to destroy Corvette and the boosters. However, that description doesn’t even scratch the surface of the wild and imaginative places the movie goes.
Corvette is a frustrated fashion designer living in an abandoned fast food restaurant with her fellow boosters who feels isolated and alone as a result of the oppressive nature of the modern times during which we live. She is haunted by what feels like overwhelming challenges she can’t escape that often appear to her in the form of a giant ball of stress and anxiety following her wherever she goes. Her world is turned upside down when someone scoops one of their planned heists and steals all the clothes from the store before they can, leading the boosters to discover a plot involving a mysterious teleportation device and the Chinese sweatshop where the clothes are made. This sets in motion an escalating series of ludicrous events and a plan to take down Christie and the system she profits from.
The entire cast is fantastic with Palmer and Moore anchoring the impressive ensemble. However, the highlight of I Love Boosters is writer/director Boots Riley’s vision and a continuation of themes he explored as the front man for the hip hop group The Coup and his first movie, the excellent Sorry To Bother You. The film making is so playful and imaginative. Riley uses all kinds of incredible art design and practical effects, including life size creature puppets and stop motion animation in his enjoyably chaotic satire. It is incredibly ambitious and remarkable for an independent production.
While I Love Boosters is bursting at the seams with all kinds of big creative ideas and themes, as well as dynamic filmmaking, it is very much a movie about loneliness and isolation and the power of connection and community. Corvette comes to learn she is not alone but locked into the same struggle so many other people feel and how they can all free themselves by coming together and the power for change that comes along with it. In the end, that overwhelming giant ball of stress and anxiety she can’t seem to escape from is more manageable when you aren’t alone.
In hip hop some of the best MCs often use double entendres in their lyrics. Whether it is intentional or not, it feels like Riley’s use of the word boosters could be viewed in the same way because while the girls are boosting/stealing clothes they are also ultimately boosting/amplifying a message of revolution and hope, bringing people together and changing the world.
The 4K Blu-ray is a nice release and features a number of extras including a commentary track by Boots Riley, a making-of featurette, bloopers, and interviews with Riley and the cast as well as teasers, trailers, and TV spots to dig into. It’s a solid selection of bonus features, but I could have used even more focusing on the art direction and visual effects.
I Love Boosters in now available on 4K Blu-ray from Neon.
