BOOTS RILEY TAKES SHOTS AT CAPITALISM (AGAIN) IN ZANY COMEDY “I LOVE BOOSTERS”

SPOILER FREE

SXSW likes to open with a bang—something loud, funny, a little chaotic, and ideally the kind of movie that makes a packed theater feel like a party. I Love Boosters, the latest from filmmaker and professional capitalist agitator Boots Riley, fits that brief perfectly. It’s stylish, ridiculous, politically mischievous, and powered by a cast that looks like they’re having the time of their lives.

As the opening night film, it arrives like a shot of espresso to the festival’s bloodstream—a fashion-heist-comedy with revolutionary undertones that immediately sets the tone for a week of cinema that’s bold, weird, and ready to start some trouble.

Boots Riley has never been subtle. His work goes straight for capitalism’s throat—usually with a joke. With I Love Boosters, Riley returns to the formula he perfected with Sorry to Bother You and the surreal Amazon Prime series I'm a Virgo. This time, the target is luxury fashion—and the absurd machinery that decides who gets to wear it.

Keke Palmer stars as Corvette, an aspiring fashion designer who runs her own neighborhood boosters store—a kind of underground boutique stocked entirely with stolen luxury goods and sold back to the community at prices normal people can actually afford. Corvette’s crew includes her partners in crime, Sade and Mariah (played by Naomi Ackie and Taylour Paige) with Poppy Liu as eventually joining the operation. Together they specialize in lifting designer pieces from high-end boutiques and redistributing them like fashionable Robin Hoods.

But this isn’t just about petty theft—it’s personal.

Their ultimate target is Christie Smith, a ruthlessly corrupt fashion mogul (played with icy relish by Demi Moore). Smith isn’t just guilty of price gouging and industry elitism. She’s also built her empire by stealing other designers’ work—including a brilliant “flappy pocket” suit originally created by Corvette. Meanwhile, over in a mainland China clothing factory producing Smith’s garments, workers are falling ill with lung cancer thanks to a cheap, sawdust-like fabric she insists on using. At that point, boosting feels less like crime and more like justice.

Revenge is the only logical next step. Obviously.

Complicating things is a mysterious man (played by LaKeith Stanfield), who keeps appearing in Corvette’s orbit with suspicious timing—and a very obvious crush. Whether he’s friend, foe, or something stranger is part of the film’s ongoing intrigue.

Meanwhile Eiza González steals several scenes as a stoner punk retail worker who eventually becomes an unexpected ally in the crew’s takedown of Smith. She’s also, somewhat inexplicably, the film’s resident expert on time travel—because this is a Boots Riley movie, and things are never going to stay grounded for long.

At its core, I Love Boosters is a heist movie. But Riley isn’t interested in the usual Ocean’s Eleven slickness. His boosters don’t steal for greed. They steal because the system itself deserves it. Fashion isn’t an aesthetic, it’s a class structure. And the Velvet Gang's operation isn't a crime, it's community service. Or as they call it "fashion forward filanthrophy"

Palmer leads with the kind of comedic timing that makes the entire movie snap into focus. Corvette is half ringleader, half revolutionary hype woman—equal parts icon and professional menace to luxury retail. Watching Palmer work here feels like watching someone finally get the exact role she deserves: loud, politically mischievous, and extremely funny.

If Sorry to Bother You turned corporate America into a literal nightmare and I'm a Virgo turned policing into superhero satire, I Love Boosters tackles consumer culture with the same gleeful irreverence. Riley has always been fascinated by the way systems turn people into participants in their own exploitation. Luxury fashion, with its astronomical price tags and manufactured scarcity, might be the most perfect metaphor yet. The film asks a simple question that becomes funnier the longer you sit with it: if fashion is built on aspiration, exclusivity, and artificial value… why exactly is it wrong to take it back?

As far as festival openers go, this one just makes sense. I Love Boosters is the kind of movie that turns a premiere screening into an event. Riley’s ideas can sometimes feel like they’re sprinting ahead of the plot, but that barely matters when the film is this entertaining. The jokes land, the cast is clearly having a blast, and the movie looks like a fashion editorial shot by an anarchist.

Which is to say: it’s exactly what you want from a Boots Riley movie.