Boots Riley’s sophomore feature rocketed into theaters at the tail-end of May in bright, bold, irreverent colors. With the summer blockbuster season starting, perhaps this odd, indie film could fade into the background, but I Love Boosters all but dares you to forget it. It knows you cannot.
Boots Riley, an activist, musician, and filmmaker, made his feature film directorial debut with the critically acclaimed Sorry to Bother You (2017), a fiercely unique sci-fi comedy packed with social messaging. The son of two social justice organizers, Riley was politically active from a young age and expresses these views in his art, both musically and filmically.
I Love Boosters follows a group of female shoplifters, or “boosters”, known as the Velvet Gang, in the San Francisco Bay Area who specialize in stealing high-end fashion and selling them to their working-class peers. Corvette (Keke Palmer) is an aspiring fashion designer who both admires and detests the clothes she steals and their designer Christie Smith (Demi Moore). When Smith steals one of Corvette’s designs, she vows revenge along with her crew mates, Sade (Namoi Acke) and Mariah (Taylour Paige), and the three end up getting wrapped up in a global revolution against the fashion brand and its unethical practices.
Happily expanding on Sorry to Bother You’s surrealistic style, I Love Boosters sometimes feels like a Looney Tunes cartoon– but one where Bugs Bunny must deal with the horrors of late-stage American capitalism. The audience does not even blink when the scifi teleportation device is introduced, as it feels natural in this satirical setting. The bombastic style and riotously bright colors, that is seemingly par for the course in this strange, hyper saturated world the characters inhabit, give the movie an inimitable flair. Color is especially important, as each of Christie Smith’s stores is a single, bright color and Corvette similarly adores a singular shade of turquoise– which Smith claims is aquamarine before promptly stealing it.
The film is not style over substance, rather the style is the substance– which is perhaps the theme of the entire film. The creative, personal, and passionate styles of these Black women are stolen, commodified, and tamed by the privileged Smith, who then goes on to enact an autocratic rule of what colors should be worn where. She looks down on the “urban” women who she claims are unoriginal and uneducated, while she takes their ideas and dresses them in White privilege to the praise of all. The sci-fi device that Poppy Liu’s Jianhu brings from China works by teleporting, deconstructing, and accelerating situations. It functions like art functions, taking one to new places, deconstructing what makes up the world, and igniting situations that call for radical action. The device is stolen from Smith and taken by our protagonists to battle against her, real art versus false theft.
Riley is not subtle with his political themes, and I would argue that he does not need to be. The film never preaches; it is too fun and clever for that. It simply introduces the situation and leads the audience to the inevitable conclusion that corrupt, creatively bankrupt companies must be fought by our working-class, creative protagonists. Through Jianhu and her family, Riley can showcase the importance of global solidarity in fighting multi-national companies. The characters never seem to be mouthpieces for his words but are rather fully realized people. Sade, for instance, is not interested in Corvette’s revenge against corporate overlords. She is in this for herself and her family, not for politics. Violeta (Eiza González), a worker at one of Smith’s Metro Designers stores must fight to get the Velvet Gang involved in her labor strike, as they are initially uninterested. These characters do not become icons for political thought but are rather people who realize the importance of community and resistance.
Community is key, as the female trio of the Velvet Gang are truly the heart of this film. While Taylour Paige as Mariah gets the biggest laughs with her impeccable comedic delivery, Palmer and Acke bring the real conflict. Their relationship feels like a genuine display of complex Black sisterhood, with neither of them hesitating to tell the other off when they need it. While the gang find community with the Chinese factory workers and the employees of Metro Designers, coming together to fight their common oppressor, they also come to a deeper understanding of each other. Corvette learns her own worth and the importance of being loved by the people around her. The film, more than decrying specific political or economic agents, is about the revolution that must occur in the heart before it can start in the streets. Whether or not the audience agrees with Riley’s views, they can understand the machinations of the heart. I Love Boosters is a fascinating piece of political film making that does not skimp on its characters, entertainment, or visual spectacle. In a time of increasingly corporate film making, Boots Riley is a breath of fresh air as a true artist that demands to be watched. Be sure to catch it in theaters as soon as you can because this is a cult classic that future generations will use to examine all the anxieties and hopes of the working-class American in 2026.