I Love Boosters: Film Review

LaKeith Stanfield’s character and storyline don’t even attempt to stick for me. This is not a story, nor is Corvette a character that requires a romantic interest in any way. He doesn’t incite any important conflict and only impacts the group’s goal in one way (and I fully believe they could’ve figured it out without him). The worst impact of Stanfield’s character is on the film itself. 

In Boosters, his most ambitious project, its third act specifically represents Riley, the writer, at his most ambitious. Hardly anything will supplant, as far as shocking cinematic moments of the last decade, the human/equestrian surprise of Sorry to Bother You, but as far as this film’s message and sheer amount of storylines, it would be a high-wire act for anybody to gel those pieces together effectively and Riley handles it with aplomb. 

There’s a moment, though, where Riley, making another unsubtle, horse-people-level point, clearly attempts to shock his audience, but because of Stanfield’s one-bit character introduced earlier in the film, the effect is lessened. The third act is often where obvious films become the most obvious. The story beat to which I’m referring actually isn’t obvious at all, and should work as a twist - it just simply isn’t the weirdest part of the film, and in a film where the weird is meant to carry, that’s a problem.

My favorite kind of film is an ambitious one. There’s an urgency that I notice in stories with a lot going on. That also means it's more likely to be a bit messy, with many ambitious stories trying to juggle too many topics at once (Sinners, Everything Everywhere All at Once, with which this film shares a costume designer, and Babylon are all recent examples). 

If you do not like political filmmaking, this is not the movie for you. One of Riley’s trademarks is his unabashed (and based) far-left ideology and the satirization of personalities and oppressive systems that do not serve him nor reflect his view of the world. Few filmmakers are as openly communist as him, which makes his films unmistakable and establishes him as an auteur with only two features and a limited series to his name. It is, admittedly, my favorite trait of his as a director. 

As a student of Spike Lee, myself, I understand that the most effective tool one might have as a satirist is to make it plain. You see diverse neighbors directing slurs towards the camera in Do the Right Thing or a white audience, all in blackface, shouting the N-word at Black actors (also in blackface) in Bamboozled and, in both cases, immediately understand the filmmaker's specific, active frustration, as well as their fear. The Substance would be another good, genred, example. 

I Love Boosters is a similar case. I can't be too specific, but there are moments, characters, and literal plot devices that all but spell out Riley's ethos on screen. It can come off as heavy-handed in a few ways, but sometimes, people need to be hit on the head. To capitalize on is to take advantage. Capitalism is taking advantage of us, and Boots Riley makes that colorfully plain.

Viewed on 4/29/26 at press screening

Published on 4/30/26