Back in 2018, rapper and activist Boots Riley made his feature film debut with Sorry To Bother You, a caustically funny satire about racial and economic disparity. That film followed a telemarketer played by LaKeith Stanfield who adopts a "white voice" to succeed, but also featured horse-people. For some, that absurdist twist threatened to break the spell, even within Riley's fun-house mirror of our fraught world.
Now, Riley's latest film I Love Boosters is just as outrageously hilarious and militant in its refusal to be enjoyed in conventional terms. Just when viewers settle into a seductive heist premise—where Robin Hood-like thieves liberate high fashion from the filthy rich—Riley throws in demon cunnilingus or Marxist concepts like dialectical materialism, illustrated by two people raw-dogging it.
These hysterical bits are digestible, but the film's more absurd and baffling moments risk alienating audiences, much like Sorry To Bother You did. However, the offending gags and detours always feel motivated by the movie's rousing political ideas and cinematic resistance. Whatever makes them confounding also ensures viewers aren't lulled into complacency. I Love Boosters welcomes all resistance, even towards itself.
Riley isn't the first to play this game. Trolling with political intent recalls Jean-Luc Godard, whom Riley cheekily references. Perhaps he acknowledges how much is borrowed from Godard's radical masterpiece Tout Va Bien, substituting Paris for the Bay Area and a French sausage factory strike with a multifaceted revolt against the fashion industry.
The boosters, led by Keke Palmer's irresistibly charming Corvette, are part of that revolt. They embark on shoplifting sprees, snatching designer fashion from retail stores, stuffing everything into their spacious outfits to be pawned later. Corvette first appears making off with so much under her pink plush jumpsuit that she looks like a Teletubby waddling out the store.
Corvette, alongside Taylour Paige's mischievous Mariah and Naomi Ackie's stoic Sade, are entrepreneurs treating their venture like a movement. They build community among fellow boosters and appreciative customers; Mariah dubs it "fast fashion philanthropy." Their operation aligns them with exploited retail staff and Chinese sweatshop labourers opposing Demi Moore's silver-haired Christie Smith, a haute couture vulture capitalist with no ethical bounds. Christie, reminiscent of a more conniving Miranda Priestly, has creations that bend similarly to the horse-people from Sorry To Bother You.
Christie dubs the unidentified thieves "the Velvet Gang" and calls them "low-class urban bitches." Corvette is flattered that Christie knows they exist. Corvette idolizes Christie, having once aspired to be a designer before hustling as a fast way out of living in an abandoned fried chicken spot with Mariah. They shower where the service counter used to be, the scent of extra crispy chicken lingering.
I Love Boosters is loaded with sight gags and showcases Riley's knack for sketch comedy, especially during deliriously fun heist scenes. An early bit where Mariah holds her breath to turn light-skinned Black, throwing off suspicious white retail staff, is peak Riley. Things get wilder when Poppy Liu appears as a refugee from the unsafe Chinese factory producing Christie's clothing. She joins the Velvet Gang and brings a teleportation device.
Riley gets the most from his ensemble, including Sorry To Bother You's Stanfield as a sultry playboy who melts the screen when staring into Corvette's eyes, and Don Cheadle, disguised under heavy latex, as a greasy furniture salesman with a pyramid scheme preying on his own community. But while every actor makes a brash impression, their characters feel frustratingly limited. We don't get intimate with Corvette and her crew to know and adore them enough when the plot goes haywire. Many characters are defined mostly by where they fall on the spectrum of race and capitalism, and their function in the movie's messaging.
I Love Boosters keeps everyone at a distance, in full view of its political tapestry. The film is out in US cinemas on 22 May, with UK and Australia dates to be announced.
