I Love Boosters
Directed by Boots Riley
Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Poppy Liu, Taylour Paige, Demi Moore
“Boots Riley finally returns with a heist comedy that has more ideas than minutes, which is both its charm and its problem.”
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The Review
Boots Riley took eight years between Sorry to Bother You and I Love Boosters, and you can feel every one of them packed into the runtime. This is a film bursting at the seams with class commentary, ensemble chemistry, and the specific kind of righteous anger that only a director who genuinely does not care about your comfort can sustain. The result is messy, frequently brilliant, and occasionally exhausting in the way that the best Riley work always is.
Keke Palmer is the gravitational center, and she earns it. She plays the de facto leader of a crew of professional shoplifters with a looseness that masks how much technical control she is actually using. Naomi Ackie matches her beat for beat as the conscience of the group, while Poppy Liu walks away with three scenes that should be studied. Taylour Paige does the most thankless job, the one whose arc carries the movie's actual political argument, and she lands it. Demi Moore shows up as the corporate antagonist and treats the role with the relish of someone who has been waiting decades for a part that lets her play this kind of polished villainy.
The film genuinely does not know how to end, and that is a Boots Riley feature rather than a bug. He swings for something larger in the final act and the swing is wild, ambitious, and only partially connects. You will either find that thrilling or frustrating depending on your tolerance for filmmakers who refuse to land on a clean resolution. The middle hour, where the heists escalate and the satire gets specific about retail surveillance and gig economy precarity, is some of the most alive American filmmaking this year.
What stops this from being a masterpiece is the same thing that stops most Riley films from being masterpieces, which is that he is more interested in arguing than in crafting. Scenes go on too long. Jokes that work get a second airing that does not. But you walk out remembering specific images, specific lines, and a specific feeling that someone in American cinema is still willing to be inconvenient on purpose.
What It Nails
- +Keke Palmer delivering a movie-star performance that finally matches her actual range, charm dialed into something close to threat.
- +The ensemble chemistry between the five leads, which feels lived in rather than workshopped.
- +A middle hour of escalating heists that doubles as a serious essay on retail labor and surveillance capitalism.
- +Demi Moore committing fully to a corporate villain role that lesser actresses would have played for camp.
What It Botches
- -A third act that mistakes scale for resolution and ends up smaller than the film that preceded it.
- -At least fifteen minutes of fat in the second hour that a more disciplined editor would have cut.
- -A villain monologue that explains the politics the rest of the film had already shown with more wit.
- -Music cues that lean a little too hard on telling you how to feel about scenes that were doing fine on their own.
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Who It's For
Anyone who has been waiting for Boots Riley to make another movie, and viewers who like their heist comedies with actual ideological teeth instead of jukebox needle drops.
Who Should Skip
Audiences who want a clean Ocean's Eleven hangout movie, or anyone who thinks political content in a comedy is automatically a flaw rather than a feature.
Marketing Roast
The trailer sold this as a girlboss heist romp, which is roughly the opposite of what Riley made. The marketing assumed audiences could not handle the actual film, which is funnier and angrier than the posters suggest.
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