Was I LOVE BOOSTERS Good?

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]I recently got to watch I Love Boosters and I walked away with a lot of complicated thoughts about the film and I want to cover it for another episode of Anarchism on Film, a series on this channel where I review radical films through my lens as an organizer of 10 plus years. I went into I Love Boosters not with many expectations. I personally have a deep love for Kiki Palmer and I always have since I saw Akquila and the Bee three times in the same summer when I was like 12. We're going to talk about the film. We're going to talk about what made it radical, what some of my qualms are, and what I would rate the film one out of 10. So stay tuned for all of those things. But first, let's talk about what the film I Love Boosters is about. So, I love Boosters is a surreal anti- capitalist crime comedy from Boots Riley that follows Corvette, played by Kiki Palmer and the Velvet Gang, a crew of Bay Area shoplifterss who steal and redistribute luxury fashion while navigating poverty, labor exploitation in a fashion industry built on theft and image making. As the crew clashes with a powerful fashion mogul named Demi Moore, the movie spirals into a chaotic mix of satire, sci-fi absurdity, comedy, and commentary about class struggle, creativity, and survival under capitalism. And Boots Riley, who wrote and directed the film, has notably said that the film grew out of his frustration with retail theft getting discussed in the media, while the larger thefts of capitalism are treated as normal. In interviews, he described the movie as a way to talk about class struggle through comedy and surrealism, arguing that capitalism itself built on theft and that collective action, especially labor organizing, is the real force capable of changing society.

[00:01:40]So, first I want to talk about the elements of the film that made it feel radical to me. I mean, first off, we start off the movie with Corvette struggling to make ends meet, squatting in a abandoned um fried chicken restaurant, and her crew of friends, the Velvet Gang, are boosting. And I really like the opening scene because the more and more I thought about the film afterwards, the opening scene is basically Corvette going into a club and she's dancing and dancing with this dude and you think she's going to go back to her place and hook up with him. And then she opens her apartment door and it's just her like DIY retail store and she's like, "What do you want to buy?" That opening scene distills one of the main kind of assertions of the film, which is when we are so dependent, when we are so focused on survival and getting what's yours and making money, you kind of forget to enjoy what is right there in front of you. I mean, in that first scene, Corvette doesn't pay attention to the guy that later becomes a love interest. Um, throughout the film, she berates and crashes out on her friends who are part of her crew, and she's hyperfixated eventually on the fact that the fashion mogul has stolen one of her designs from a competition. The day before I saw I Love Boosters, I ended up talking to someone who owned a farm and talking to them about owning their own land, and we started talking about Station 11, which is one of my favorite TV shows. And in the book and I believe the show, there's a tattoo that one of the characters has that is based on a Star Trek reference that says, "Survival is not enough." And I think this film definitely exposes that. Corvette is so obsessed with getting justice for her stolen design, but more importantly, making money. Partway through the film, her her desires do shift. At the beginning, I think it's really to make money and to pay off her debt and bills, but throughout the film, she eventually leans into wanting to get revenge against this fashion mogul for stealing her design. But what the film really exposes, especially with this motif of a giant ball that appears numerous times throughout the film of a bunch of bills that Corvette has as a representation of like the demands of capitalism. One thread that was very clear and I think um useful was showing how she constantly felt lonely or felt emotionally distant from the people around her despite the fact that they were throwing down with her, going into stores, stealing [ __ ] like putting their futures at risk in order to be a collective and to help each other. And another part of the movie that I felt was really stirring and um showed it as a radical narrative was when the Chinese character is introduced and there's this whole subplot of the clothes from Metro Designs, which is the fashion corporation that they're constantly boosting clothes from. Um, this girl teleports from China to the US and ends up trying to steal clothes as revenge against um, Metro Designs and the company and the corporation for having such poor labor practices and exploiting the workers. And eventually, the Velvet Gang teams up with John Wu, who is a worker at one of the facilities for Metro Designs in China. John Woo is really fixated on getting revenge against the company because the sand blasting of the jeans is leading to employees being sick. I think the film was really good at showing how people might have the same end goal, but the motives to get them there might be different. For John who it was to get justice for her family and the other workers in her factory for Corvette, justice was getting revenge against Demi Moore's character for stealing her design. for other people in her crew like her friend who was a mother. The um the motive was to make enough money to support her family. And we got to see the ways that solidarity played out and the ways that solidarity could could be on thin ice. And at other moments in the film, we got to see how solidarity could be strengthened in moments where people really realize that their goals are aligned even if their motives might be a little bit different. Another thread in this film that I think really exposed it as a radical narrative was one being able to see the kind of hyperbolic archetype of Demi Moore's character.

[00:05:52]She's a CEO. She's calling the Velvet Gang these lowass urban [ __ ] She's mistreating her assistant. And there's a lot of visual surrealism and imagy imagery in the film to get across the hyper exploitation of capitalism.

[00:06:05]Whether it be Demi Moore's um slanted building, whether it be the sort of surrealism of the different Metro Design stores and the boss at a particular store played by Will Porter um exploiting his workers, them literally getting paid um a bi-weekly paycheck and it adds up to $48. Like there are a lot of elements of the film that I think are turned up to a satirical level to expose the things about capitalism that really are ridiculous when we like really pay attention to them. And I think Boots Riley is really good at putting all these things together in a narrative and it being really shocking. Other part of this film that really really struck me was when um the Velvet Gang ends up having this whole plan to mess up like this huge fashion show by Metro Designs.

[00:06:51]And then there's this whole kind of skin suit subplot with Metro Design using these skin suits to get people to go into the media and to push propaganda and messages that essentially denigrate the poor. And although I didn't totally love this subplot, I do think it was a very clear analogy for the ways that people become pawns for the political elite. the ways that human beings can dehumanize themselves and dehumanize other people to the point of being I it made me think about um a year or two ago when I went to a radicalism in writing conference and I went to a talk about how the alt-right has co-opted the notion of non-playable characters NPCs and how this notion of the NPC has been co-opted by the alt-right to say that people who operate with these predetermined roles and functions in society are essentially the non-playable characters in video game that you might see in Pokemon when you go to a store and you're going to buy something and it's just a non-playable character who's only there to have that one role. And this whole NPC alt-right discourse argues that there are people in in the actual world that are actually just walking flashbacks fulfilling um the roles of either the elite or the roles of what their function at a particular institution or corporation is. I think the skin people thing got that across. I do think it kind of descended into like this chaos where I don't really think I loved the third act as much as I loved the beginnings of the film, but I do think what Boots Riley was getting at was shown effectively on a visual and surrealist level. And I kind of mentioned it before, but throughout the film there's also this like visual motif of whenever Corvette is kind of making plans with the Velvet Gang about the next kind of job or bus they're going to do to steal clothes and then sell it.

[00:08:42]Um, sometimes she kind of disassociates and then look looks into her environment and then she sees this giant ball that's filled with all these bills and and and throughout the film you kind of begin to understand that this ball is sort of a manifestation or a metaphor for the demands of capitalism and how debt pushes people to distance themselves from the people in their lives and to fixate on what their goal is, which is survival or more money or paying their bills or getting out of debt and whatever it may be. Especially in the moments where Corvette snapped at her friend and denigrated the people in her crew, you really got to see how her pursuit of this greater goal of getting revenge against Demi Moore's character essentially put her at odds with the people that were actually in her corner and wanted to help her. Moving on, I want to talk about some of my qualms with the film. When I ended the film, immediately what I thought of is that in act three, essentially they are going to do this big revenge plot against the against a huge fashion show for Metro Designs. And there's this like cat and mouse thing with Corvette trying to escape the show and then she ends up in China and ends up like being in one of the Metro Design factories and is flashing back and forth between the chi the factory in China and then the fashion show in the Bay Area. There is a moment where she's in the factory and trying to get away and a bunch of the workers end up helping her and then she returns back to the fashion show in the US and she then sees the crowd of people at the fashion show who are protesting it and she decides [ __ ] it. Let's let's side with the people. Let's side with the workers. Let's side with the people resisting. Although I found this to be a useful plot element to have in a movie in this period of time when fascism is on the rise, when capitalism is trying to eat itself, when the tech elite are trying to like literally push aside humanity for the whims of what they believe technology and AI investment can do. I don't think the shift in Corvette's character was believable enough. Yes, we got the buildup of her snapping at her friends. Yes, we got the subtext of her getting a job at Metro Designs and then meeting some of the workers there and the workers are trying to organize against their labor conditions, but there was never really a moment with Corvette where I believably saw her like kind of take in the the devastation and the scale of capitalism and to really process it. The processing was in one snap moment at the China factory. She teleports back to the US and then suddenly she's ready to fight for the revolution and do the right thing. There are other things that the film could have done to kind of like massage this shift in her character a little bit. Um, we obviously got the points of conflict between Corvette and her best friend in her crew who she snaps at a lot and degrades and demeans because her best friend um doesn't really care as much about getting revenge against Metro Design. She wants to make money in order to help her and her kids survive. I think if that conflict between Corvette and her friend had been kind of fleshed out a little bit more, if the conflict might have disrupted them, even being able to do this final big revenge plot and maybe Corvette would have had to talk to her friend and be honest about how capitalism and the demands of it has like kind of pushed her to push people away.

[00:11:52]I would have bought much more into her shift at the fashion show, but as it was expressed on screen, it kind of happened quickly. Then you're zooming into them running around and the cat and the mouse and they're driving through a ball and oh my gosh, all these exciting things are happening. The emotional buildup didn't feel earned to me. And we didn't really rest in any moment long enough to feel the consequences on a personal level with some of the characters. And I think if that could have been shifted, it would have worked a lot more. I think this is tied to one of my other qualms with the film. I really think the first act was pretty strong up until they up until the Velvet Gang starts to work at Metro Designs and then they meet Jean Hoos character and even with Xien whose character um the Chinese worker from the Metro Designs factory I think that her plot could have been played up. Um, once she entered the Velvet gang, we kind of see her kind of colliding peacefully with them, being part of their gang, going into stores, boosting stuff. But I think there might have been opportunity with Gian whose character meeting and beginning to work with um some of the Metro Design workers in the US who are trying to protest for better labor conditions and really maybe even having one or two scenes where they begin to have some sort of connection about the material conditions that they're both facing. I did love that there was the American worker character who is able to explain dialectical materialism to them and like she's really forward thinking and leftist and blah blah blah. At point some of the characters did kind of feel like caricatures. Demi Moore's character was a caricature of a of a tyrannical CEO. Corvette's character was an archetype of a well-meaning but stubborn kind of leader of a crew. Gien whose character is an archetype of the exploited worker from another country or place. their labor is invisibleized, the people that are consuming these products. I can't remember the name of the worker who is at the Metro Design Store that ends up kind of leading the union kind of like revolt, but she's definitely an archetype of a typical disgruntled worker who wants to change her conditions and is really forward and blatant about it. I think there were various elements of the film that if it had been fine-tuned a little bit more, I think it would have made the believability of the resistance that much more apparent. Like even the fact that Demi Moore's character, who is the CEO of Metro Designs, um she has an assistant who kind of pushes back against her, especially in the third act, that felt gratifying, but it also kind of jumped at you out of nowhere. Like I like that character. I was just kind of like, "Okay, I guess she's like suddenly in this."

[00:14:30]And there were things that could have been done better watching this film and wondering like, "I wonder if there were longer drafts of the film. I wonder what earlier drafts of it looked like." It felt to me like maybe there was like 20% more of the film that had to be scaled back. If that 20% more had been included, the emotional payoff of the ending would have been that much more interesting. Leit Stanfield's character need to be there. Essentially, in the film, Lake Heath Stanfield's character is this fashion model that shows up throughout and is constantly trying to talk to Corvette and kind of seduce her.

[00:15:05]And Corvette is constantly fixated on her revenge plot against Metro Designs.

[00:15:11]And although she's attracted to Lake Eye Stansfield's character, who turns out to be a soul sucking demon who sucks your soul out by going to third base with you.

[00:15:25]One, I think the easiest reading of his character is because of how the film ends. His character is a representation how love, sex, intimacy within capitalism can be a distraction that takes us away from these deeper and more platonic forms of community. I get that.

[00:15:42]I I think it can work, but I really don't think his character needed to be there. He was pretty inconsequential.

[00:15:49]what he did do were things that I think could have easily been rewritten to include another character or someone else being able to find a solution that he theoretically was able to find for them, especially in the final act. A part of me saw this film and was kind of like, oh, was Lake Heat Stanfield in there? because him and Boots Riley are tight and Boots Riley thought it would be fun to include like Keith Stanfield and they just kind of wrote him in because his character did feel really inconsequential and even him being included in like the last 5 minutes and I don't want to spoil what happens in the end necessarily. Even him at the end I I felt like I I could have not seen him and I really wouldn't have cared by the end of the film and it really was inconsequential. Although I like the decision that Corvette's character makes in relation to his character by the end of the film, >> all the wrongs that are going on in the bigger picture.

[00:16:37]>> Exactly. And you know, and and the the the reason why there has to be an illegal economy, that was the impetus for the song, but it was also um at the time talking about the the uh social position that folks that provide this service in the community uh have like that. They are PE people are like uh really grateful, right? They know the person. They know Whitney with the laptops that can hook them up with the laptop that they need. They know all these people that that that can um connect them with the things that they need. and and uh and it's it's it's someone that if you were to look at it, you know, on a objective level, it's someone that actually is is uh in their way doing a part that keeps the community together. So, >> honestly, if I would give this film a one out of 10 review, I would probably give it a solid six, maybe 6.5. I was thoroughly entertained. I think the acting was pretty solid. The set design and the fashion was super strong, but I think the writing was a bit lacking, the pacing was a bit fast, and the emotional payoffs by the end did feel a bit rushed. And I think if we had been let into Corvette's world a little bit more, if we got to understand a little bit more of her crew, if there were a bit more interpersonal consequences for her kind of crashing out on her friends, act three would have been that much more interesting and it would have had much more of a payoff. Although I believe that these politics are important to express and show in this time and era, and I'm really glad a movie like Boosters exists and is out there, I do think there's a better version of a film showing collectives coming together and resisting against corporate America, against wage exploitation. But I would highly recommend checking out this movie. I think it deserves to be supported. I think it's an important film for the times. And I'm excited to see more anti- capitalist narratives on display in the mainstream in ways that are silly and interesting and comedic, but still hopefully get across a bit of emotional depth and truth, which I think this film had a lot more room to do.

[00:18:56]Thank you for watching this episode of Anarchism on Film. If you want to check out my other episodes in this series, check out the playlist in the description and like, comment, and subscribe to see more radical media and reviews on this channel and beyond.

[00:19:22]Hey, hey, hey.