Is I Love Boosters a Masterpiece or a Misstep?

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]I love Boosters is a Technicolor masterclass in filmmaking and class solidarity. Welcome back to Tax Evasion Movie Reviews, the show where I review movies now because I want to be able to write my AMC movie pass off of my taxes as a business expense. I just got out of Boots Riley's new film, I love Boosters, and boy, do I love this batshit bonkers film. I do want to acknowledge that I am breaking my own self-imposed rule that I will not review unapologetically black pieces of media the day that they come out because I want to give black people the opportunity to be the first voices on a project, but this was one of my most highly anticipated movies of the year, and I could have seen it on Monday, but I chose not to because I live in Los Angeles and we're an industry town and we get a lot of opportunities to see things unrealistically early, and I knew if I had seen it early early early, I would not have been able to keep my mouth shut because, guess what, I saw it today, the day it came out in theaters, and I cannot keep my mouth shut because this movie is so lavishly beautiful and quirky and bonkers and brilliant. Like an ant being cooked alive by the reflected rays of a magnifying glass and the sun beating down on it, this film is unflinching in its acknowledgement of what is legal and illegal has very little to do with the actions and entirely to do with who is perpetrating the actions. I went into this film having no idea what to expect because the marketing material really did not focus on the core of this movie. So, I do not want to give spoilers to the actual plot. Like Robin Hood and his band of merry men, this movie focuses on a group of boosters led by the incomparable Keke Palmer as they steal clothes from high-end stores and sell them at a discount to people living in urban areas. Stealing wrong? Absolutely, but it's only a crime when the poor steal from the rich, and it's never actually a crime when the rich steal from the poor. I Love Boosters is the best fashion movie in theaters right now, and I know that The Devil Wears Prada is in theaters. Demi Moore gives an absolutely brilliant and layered, yet two-dimensional performance as she is the villain of the story and a stand-in for capitalism. I went into I Love Boosters expecting a quirky, colorful Ocean's 11, and I left experiencing one of the most brilliant movies about anti-capitalism, wage theft, slavery, and poor working conditions with a layer of union busting. On top of that, it had some of the most beautiful visuals I have ever seen in a film, claymation, and a vampire. Whatever you think this movie is, it is not. I'd never heard of Taylour Paige before, so I was absolutely surprised that she was my favorite actress in this movie, a movie that has Demi Moore and Keke Palmer.

[00:02:58]Wow. Paige, brilliant, scene-stealing performance from you, my darling. I'm going to have to give I Love Boosters a very solid four and a half out of five onion rating. This movie is not perfect, but if you go in with an open mind, you will have a lot of fun and some profound realizations about society. All right, my strange little onions, I love you.

[00:03:23]Have a hug, a cookie, and a juice box, and let me know what other movies you would like to see me review. Mwah.