- Director: Boots Riley
- Screenplay: Boots Riley
- Producer: Aaron Ryder, Andrew Swett, Allison Rose Carter, Jon Read, Boots Riley
- Cast: Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza Gonzalez, LaKeith Stanfield, Will Poulter, Don Cheadle, Demi Moore
- Cinematography: Natasha Braier
- Editing: Terel Gibson, Matthew Hannam
- Score: Tune-Yards
- Genre: Absurdist crime comedy
- Runtime: 113 minutes
From the zany mind of Boots Riley (‘Sorry to Bother You‘) comes ‘I Love Boosters‘. A ‘booster’ is a shoplifter who swipes from a high-end retailer and resells the stock at a discounted price in an underground market. Three of these boosters comprise the Velvet Gang – Corvette (Keke Palmer), Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige). They target Christie Smith (Demi Moore), a fashion designer, and her overpriced clothes. Christie is aware of their existence, referring to them as “low-class urban bitches”. What a charmer. She’s also stolen one of Corvette’s designs so this takedown is personal.
There’s lashings of the surreal. Corvette’s worries manifest into a huge ball, rolling down the road. People strip themselves of skin, revealing their flayed figures. Calling it weird is putting it lightly. Even when you can’t fathom what you’re witnessing, you’ll never be bored. The film is boundlessly colourful. It’s as if someone ingested a rainbow and threw up on the screen. Colour is used to express the idea of uniformity; the employees of Metro Designers (Christie’s clothing chain) don garments of the same hue, the décor of the store matching. Meanwhile, the Velvet Gang wear such flamboyant outfits, so detailed yet so disparate. The gals are all dressed to the nines, the makeup and wigs are the icing on the cake.
Aside from the peculiarity, ‘I Love Boosters‘ has much to say about the fashion industry, the class system, poverty (especially among ethnic minorities) and lousy factory conditions. Add some science fiction elements and you’ve got a madcap Robin Hood-adjacent fever dream. With the most unhinged sex scene you’ve ever seen.
Never understated but always stylish.
My rating: 7 / 10
