“Now look, the DA’s office just put out a press release saying that boosting from department stores and high-end fashion outlets will be receiving more aggressive attention from their office.”
This almost sounds like a soundbite from an evening news broadcast. There has been a national debate about how the law should treat these kinds of thefts. Some cities have taken the approach that they aren’t really going to prosecute these kinds of crimes, and that’s led to retail outlets fleeing places like that. But that’s not really what Boots Riley’s latest film is about. It’s somewhat based on a song from the writer/director’s rock band, but I’m not familiar with the track. The problem is that’s about all I really know about the film … even after I’ve finished watching it, and that’s a problem for me. Some of you will approach this more like an art film, and others will pretend to understand it because they think it makes them look stupid if they don’t. And that’s exactly what Boots Riley is hoping will happen.
“Hey, boosters, listen up. They comin’ for you. No excuses. Go get some damn jobs and stop spending money on nonsense. Don’t expect everything to be handed to you. Y’all are lazy, allergic to work, want to sit around acting like things are gonna fall into their laps. Makes me sick.”
Let’s see if I can guide you through this. Meet Corvette, played by Keke Palmer. Corvette squats in an abandoned chicken franchise restaurant and dreams of being a fashion designer. For now she runs a group called the Velvet Gang. They have a shoplifting (boosting) game that is polished and nets them a living, of sorts. Her two biggest friends and cohorts are Mariah, played by Taylour Page, and Sade (pronounced Sha Day), played by Naomi Ackie. They also use various people to act as distractions and particularly use white women to cause a scene so they can load up. None of this is intended to be taken seriously, however. We are treated to an early look at the operation, and the ladies leave the store so stuffed they look like the little bundled kid, Randy in A Christmas Story. They’re renowned, but any cashier with a mind could spot these girls from the moon. Corvette is doing this for more than the money. She has a philosophy she calls FFF (Fashion-Forward Filanthropy). She knows how to spell philanthropy, but it’s branding, you see. Her fellow boosters are pretty much in it for the cash.
Corvette has a hero in designer Christie Smith, played by Demi Moore. But there’s an old saying that you should not meet your heroes because they are bound to disappoint, and that’s exactly what happens when she sneaks into Smith’s place and meets her idol. It turns out she’s stolen one of her designs, and so now she’s got a new mission. She’s going to use the Velvet Gang to destroy Christie Smith, who in turn is out to destroy the Velvet Gang. What happens next is going to be hard to understand. The main point is that she overheard Christie talk about suits that are going to sell for $100,000 each (her stolen design). So they put in play a plan to get fake ID’s and get jobs at her stores. Each store spends each month totally mono-colored. Everything is green or yellow or orange or whatever. Along the way they meet Jianhu (Liu) who beats her to clearing out a store before the suits arrive and they can put their plan in action. How does she do this? She has a teleporter that looks like a toilet lid, and she just aims and it sucks up everything in the store. Yeah, now we’re really out there. But there’s more.
They corner Jianhu and learn she worked in a China factory where Christie makes her clothes for almost no labor budget. They discover the teleporter when the executives were testing it as a new shipping hack. When they join forces, we discover the device is more than a teleporter. It can mess with time and do some deconstructing. Don’t ask. Best you try to figure it out on your own. The important and understandable part here is the workers hate Christie Smith for labor reasons, and to be honest, she is a bit of a butthole.
What follows is something out of an LSD trip. It’s colorful and wacky and often makes absolutely no sense at all. It’s a collaboration of unconnected scenes that are intended just to blow your mind, in case you can’t afford the LSD. Obviously everyone is having a blast here, but it comes to us as an inside joke that we’re not really party to. There’s some wonderful craftsmanship here, from stop-motion stuff to colorful explosions of production design that show a great attention to detail and some mad skills. If only they had thought about the audience when they were paying attention to all of those other details. They didn’t, and the film is a mess. The score is an obnoxious combination of carnival music and odd vocal displays of hey-ho’s.
Video
I Love Boosters is presented in a slightly altered aspect ratio of 2.38:1. I have no idea why. The ultra-high-definition 2160p image is arrived at by an HEVC codec with an average bitrate of 75 mbps. The Dolby Vision/HDR delivers vibrant colors. This film takes those primary colors and throws them all over the screen. This presentation is likely the biggest display of just color that I might have ever seen. The image is crisp and has a decidedly digital feel to it at all times. It’s shiny and glossy, but never anything organic. I don’t suppose it was ever intended to be anything else. Black levels are average, and there’s passable shadow definition, but this film is rarely dark. It’s almost constantly bright.
Audio
The DTS HD-MA 5.1 track is a bit throbbing, and that’s how I felt by the end of the film. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop at the film. The menu selection is just as throbbing. If William Castle had released this film, he would have had a great gimmick here. A free bottle of aspirin with every sale. The dialog cuts through just fine, and the score too much so. There are a lot of kooky sound effects that feed your surrounds. Normally I’d be complaining about the failure to do a Dolby Atmos mix here, but I’m actually thankful. It might have been unbearable with deeper subs and better overall sonic quality.
Special Features
The extras are found on both the UHD and HD Blu-ray here.
The Making Of I Love Boosters: (32:17) This feature pretty much touches on all of the important elements here. We go behind the scenes for production design, f/x, makeup, and action. I do love features that allow you to spend time with crew members who most often don’t get as much attention as they deserve. I particularly loved the look at the miniatures and the stop-motion stuff.
Blooper Reel: (9:18)
Interviews With Boots Riley & Lakeith Stanford (9:21), Keke Palmer & Demi Moore (8:32) The rest of The Velvet Gang (8:17)
Final Thoughts:
I love the guys at NEON. During awards season they send us a nice ordered book of their films, and I have enjoyed their stuff greatly over the years. I really wanted to like this film. There’s so much really cool craftsmanship here that I so much wanted to enjoy it all. It’s certainly one of the most creative films I’ve seen in some time, and it’s obvious they worked hard to pull this off. None of this makes it a good movie, however. I couldn’t follow it, and I didn’t find any of the characters all that likeable. It moved from one insane area to the next, and I know they thought it was just a riot. “Long story short? I just couldn’t keep up.”
