I Love Boosters

The brilliant reveal at the heart of rapper/filmmaker Boots Riley's feature debut Sorry to Bother You created a whirlwind of expectations for his eventual sophomore effort. Until its sci-fi turn, its version of Oakland was maybe five percent askew from reality. Aside from some stray details (a sign twirlers union?) and some satirical exaggeration of realistic situations, the main exception was the black telemarketers' ability to affect a perfect "white voice", although the many black stand-up comics who can do something similar ensure it doesn't feel absurd. That film's impact came from grounding its events in the real world and taking the time to warm us up to its leads and their growing struggles, such that the central conflict emerged from their interiority, making it that much more relatable and poignant. Its liveliness and success immediately marked Riley as a director to watch, ensuring excitement around the announcement of his next movie.

He's undeniably turned up the energy and bombast in I Love Boosters, while staying true to his anti-capitalist spirit that simultaneously embodies and critiques revolutionary action, arguing that while there may be multiple right ways to go after the system, going it alone will always be the wrong way. But this time, he opts for a maximalist, cartoonish fever dream that took many of the wrong lessons from his earlier success.

The plot undergoes a complete reimagining every fifteen minutes or so, keeping the underlying story in tact but stacking up plot threads and reveals at a remarkable rate, culminating in a twist that feels like a limp iteration on equisapiens. Corvette, Sade, and Mariah (Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, and Taylour Paige) exist in an overblown farcical take on our reality that frequently crosses over into fantasy. The screen literally quivers when Corvette speaks to slick, smooth talking, smoking hot (and unnamed) LaKeith Stanfield. The primary antagonist is haute couture designer Christie Smith (Demi Moore), whose arrogance extended to insisting on taking an office built at a forty-five degree angle just to stand-out, causing Corvette to run in place as if she's in Looney Tunes during her one visit. To say nothing of the offshoots that emerge once the first sci-fi plot device is revealed, bringing together the aggrieved from opposite sides of the world in the unifying struggle under the boot of capitalism.

As implied by the film's manic flipping through plot beats, its biggest issue is lack of commitment. Barely any details stay top of mind long enough to dig into and develop or critique, existing for a single joke before they move on. Sure, it's wicked funny that the music in one of Christie's stores is abrasive instrumental EBM, à la Eelectronic Substance Abuse, played at an overwhelming volume, asserted as store policy by Grayson (an adorable Will Poulter), bobbing his head and otherwise dancing to it. But it never comes up again, not even hinted at, making clear it wasn't part of a cohesive world, but a shotgun blast of ideas. Of course, it's more galling when it applies to the plot beats, most of which are never dropped but get diluted as more are piled on top. The women's boosting takes a back seat, as does the specter of Corvette's debts, as does organizing the factory, as does the pyramid scheme run by Dr. Jack (Don Cheadle) that Mariah gets taken in by, as do the $100k suits, and more. They all eventually come back, some more meaningfully than others, but all get lost in the shuffle until then as the screenplay chases the next new shiny thing.

The trade-off is that this breakneck pace allows Riley and his collaborators to run through a truly impressive amount of comedy, from wordplay to visual emphasis to editing jokes and more. Most of the supporting characters are constructed to be maximally entertaining, freed from the burden of emotional beats to just swing as hard as they can for the weird yet recognizable. Christie is probably the best example of this, and may be the funniest part of the whole film, reading as Elizabeth Holmes meets Steve Jobs with the verbal mannerisms of Elon Musk. Grayson, Dr. Jack, and Stanfield are all home runs whenever they show up. As is their co-worker Violeta (Eiza González), whose knowledge of the corporate goings on as informed by internet research is as unexpected as it is funny, despite simultaneously feeling like a crutch Riley created to hand-wave away questions about the plot he didn't want to deal with.

That's just it. While the demand from audiences that everything make perfect logical sense leads to some of the most boring critiques of artistic works, the opposite side of that coin is the creator force-feeding viewers a cavalcade of disjointed plot beats that repel any ability to connect with and care about what they're watching. There are some excellent dramatic moments between Corvette and Sade, which is unsurprising due to the immense talent of Palmer and Ackie. But each one is quickly overwhelmed by how hard they clash with the unending silliness of the rest of the film, even Tune-Yards' excellent score. To be clear, they also pull off the loud humor quite well, but asking them to slow down every so often means their performances melt into the cacophony.

This unevenness extends to the visuals, too. They are endlessly creative and vibrant and fresh, even playing into a couple of those dramatic moments in impressionistic, impactful ways, such as when Corvette leaves one of Christie's stores following a revelation. But they're equally likely to be sloppy in ways that were quite shocking for such a high profile film released widely by a major distributor (Neon). The flatness created by an LED wall is no longer surprising to me, even as it remains noticeable. The mediocre CGI was more distracting, but not the worst. There was a lack of care in disguising that models were used during a climactic police chase that stood out, too. All of that may have been more arresting if we hadn't already seen some of the most atrocious green screen compositing in a major motion picture. Across a few sequences, most memorably the final fashion show and finding Christie's stores with guards and a vault, dead-eyed figures seemed to float against a poorly rendered backdrop as if in a Neil Breen film. While not the most consequential, it's yet another detail that prevents locking on to the narrative.

That said, its relentless nature does mean that if you can lock onto the humor, you'll absolutely have a great time. It's one of the funniest films of the year so far, even as it doesn't reach the heights of comedy seen in some more poignant dramatic works. That's the trade-off Riley's made: although this is funnier than Sorry to Bother You (which was already quite funny), it sacrificed clarity of purpose. In doing so, this is destined to remain one of the year's oddities, even as its verve and flashes of brilliance will appeal to a niche audience that will carry the cult forward. The rest of us will await Riley to regain his groove whenever he returns to the big screen (hopefully before 2034).