I Love Boosters                 4 stars

When I saw that the new film, I Love Boosters, was written and directed by Boots Riley, I knew that I had to see it. His first film Sorry To Bother You was at Sundance in 2018 and was a big hit. It was an absurd comedy starring LaKeith Stanfield that attacked the corporate structure of America and our class society. His second film is equally absurd and takes on the high fashion industry while glamourizing aspects of our criminal society. It stars Keke Palmer (One of Them Days, Nope, Alice) as Corvette who while out clubbing one night meets a man (LaKeith Stanfield (Judas and The Black Messiah)) and invites him back to her place. He doesn’t get what he is expecting though, since Corvette isn’t interested in sex. She wants to sell him some expensive clothes. (He does get some new shoes for his trouble.) You see, Corvette is in the business of Boosting. She, along with her two partners Sade (Naomi Ackie (Sorry, Baby and The Thursday Murder Club)) and Mariah (Taylor Paige (Zola)), (known as The Velvet Gang) seek out high-end fashion stores, steal expensive clothing and shoes and resell them to their customers at a deep discount. They have a particular interest in fashion magnate Christie Smith (Demi Moore of The Substance) who has a chain of stores for her fashion designs. Corvette sees herself as a fashion designer and wants revenge on Smith for stealing one of her designs, an outfit that has flaps on the arms and legs. The gang comes up with a plan to get jobs at one of Smith’s stores where they will rob the entire store on their lunch break. The store manager (Will Poulter) is very self-obsessed, talks down to his employees and makes them pay for their uniforms. But then someone else beats them to it and instantly removes the entire inventory of the store. This is where the movie becomes absurd. The gang catches up to the new robber, Jianhu (Poppy Liu of Hacks) who is Chinese and in possession of a transporter device developed by the Chinese government that she has stolen and has been using to transport the clothes back to China where they were originally made. Jianhu is doing this to stand up for the Chinese workers in the garment plants and against the owners and Christie Smith. So, Corvette realizes that they can all work together against their common enemy. After this point things get increasingly bizarre as it turns out the transporter can also transform things and people into an exaggerated form of themselves, leading to some very strange occurrences. There is also a skyscraper built at an angle creating slanted floors, making walking very difficult. There is a line of clothes from Smith called the hundred-thousand-dollar suits or skin suits that requires the wearers to have their skin removed to wear them and then there is the demon who is an expert in cunnilingus. Riley puts all this in the form of absurd comedy while also making a statement about workers’ rights and the injustice of the corporate culture of the fashion industry. This is the second movie I’ve seen this year attacking the high fashion world, the other being Mother Mary. The dialogue of the movie is very street urban and along with the type of comedy, bordering on slapstick, may not be for everyone. The name of the movie, I Love Boosters, was actually from a song written by Boots Riley a few years ago that sang praises to people who steal clothing and sell it to the less fortunate, portraying them as a modern Robin Hood. Obviously, Riley has had issues of race and social inequality on his mind for a long time. He has put them on display here in some very funny and odd set pieces.