If you followed the hype building up to the release of Boots Riley's I Love Boosters, you already knew what you were getting in or out of at least; Riley doesn't make polite films that politely sit inside their shelf while he folds laundry. Just as Sorry to Bother You, this film is loud, angry, ridiculous, and uncompromising. Now that NEON has announced the official 4K UHD release, we have a chance to see how the home video package fares. Physical media collectors can be reassured by how NEON has dedicated itself to the audiovisual presentation and disc bonuses.
The plot summary as seen on paper is simple enough. Riley, the film's main attraction, takes it into some strange and specific direction that involves professional shoplifters known as boosters. These boosters aren't boosting groceries from big box grocery chains to afford a home. They systematically steal pieces from luxury fashion houses, and then resell them along underground networks.
It takes a turn for the worse when they stumble upon a ruthless and ultra-wealthy fashion mogul played with an unreal degree of menace by Demi Moore. Moore's character is the peak of ruthless wealth accumulation that steals from the world every day she's legally allowed to while masking her actions behind a façade of culture, philanthropy, and art. When she encounters our boosting crew, led by Keke Palmer and Taylour Paige, it transforms a petty underground affair into a war over status, survival, and spite.
What makes I Love Boosters work so well is that Riley doesn't treat his thieves as saints. His boosters are flawed, egotistic, greedy, etc. Palmer is a force of nature, bouncing off Paige with an energy rooted in friendship and exhaustion. Her character and her crew have had to live by a system that only gives them things when they're willing to work for abysmal wages. Therefore, they've decided to circumvent the middleman. Additionally, we get to see Demi Moore, who is having the time of her life playing a villain with no redeeming qualities. Moore interacting with Keke Palmer's character serves as the emotional and narrative core for the third act, and the level of disdain shown on screen is worth every buck.
LaKeith Stanfield is also on hand to provide his brand of strange detachment, but none of the other actors, including Naomi Ackie, Eiza González, and Poppy Liu, are less than up to Riley's task at giving the industry a strange sheen.
Riley's direction is frenetic, and the color saturation, angles, and chaotic cuts all emulate a feeling of rushing to boost a rack of five-thousand-dollar coats off a store floor. Some subplots meander too long in the middle, and some of the social commentary feels like bricks through glass, but that's the charm of the thing.
From a technical standpoint, NEON's 4K transfer highlights every insane detail embedded in the production design. The film is obsessed with textures, be it high-end leather, silk, velvet, neon store lighting, and the gritty neon-lit streets where the boosting crew offload their haul.
On a 4K display, the native presentation comes out well on screen. The HDR grading manages to pull out the blacks in the night sequences without losing the background detail while showcasing the bright, artificial colors of the high-end retail boutiques.
Similarly, the audio mix is punchy, leaning on a deep mix of underground hip-hop and heavy basslines and unsettling ambient soundscapes. The Dolby Atmos track does remarkably well to track the space audio around the room, including store alarms ringing out, crowded city streets, and abrupt sound cuts, while still managing to keep the dialogue clear and centered on the center channel when the background score is blasting.
As far as the physical release goes, NEON has managed to create a solid set of disc bonuses that delve into the making of the chaotic machine that is I Love Boosters. NEON didn't toss together a bare-bones disc with a couple of trailers; they pulled a set of special features that look into how this machine was built.
It begins with a feature audio commentary with writer and director Boots Riley. If you've heard Riley speak before in interviews, you know to expect just about anything. He doesn't spend two hours with his arms crossed picking apart what day his characters were shot on the screen. Instead, the track functions more as an extended masterclass on political economics, cinema history, and indie filmmaking logistics. He speaks on shots that were structured to emphasize dynamics between characters, how they negotiated access to high-end filming locations that were concerned with being associated with a movie about organized shoplifting, and where he drew inspiration from for some of the script's weirdest turns. It is an energetic commentary track that never feels boring or dead. Even when he gets distracted talking about real-world economic theory, it ties back to why his characters are making the bad decisions they make.
The disc's video extras begin with "The Making of I Love Boosters," a 32-minute documentary featurette that looks at the production design and technical achievements behind the film. This documentary doesn't focus on a generic press kit fluff piece with actors talking about how great it was to work with each other. It leans heavily on the technical achievements and production design challenges of the film. The crew goes over how they built entire high-end stores on soundstages so they could visually destroy or systematically pillage them on camera. The costume department gets a huge chunk of screentime, which makes sense considering designing clothes that look like multi-thousand-dollar designer garments on an indie film budget requires serious craftsmanship. Watching the designers talk about how they sourced materials, constructed custom items, and altered existing stuff is fascinating.
There is a lot of behind-the-scenes footage that showcases Riley directing on a set, giving actors unusually specific notes, and working out complex blocking for the heist sequences. Added to the video features are three separate segmented interview sessions with the cast and director that total around 25 minutes. Dividing by topics rather than making one long, rambling video was a good move on NEON's part.
The first segment runs 9 minutes and features LaKeith Stanfield and Boots Riley focusing heavily on their creative partnership that followed Sorry to Bother You. The two have an easy, friendly banter, with Stanfield talking about how he approaches characters who exist in Riley's surreal worlds while Riley talks about writing roles specifically with Stanfield's peculiar rhythms in mind.
The second segment runs 8 minutes with Taylour Paige, Naomi Ackie, Eiza González, and Poppy Liu talking about costuming and visual design. They talk about how they felt wearing the costumes informed their performance, moving differently when wearing restrictive high-fashion garments or practical stealing gear, which is a lot of respect for the physical craft of acting and wardrobe design.
The third segment also runs 8 minutes and features Keke Palmer and Demi Moore discussing the screenplay and character choices. Palmer and Moore sit down to talk about the core conflict between their characters, breaking down the script's dialogue and discussing how they built tension in their scenes together.
Seeing Moore talk about character motivations alongside Palmer's high-energy commentary is a great look into how the two actors differed to approach the story's climax.
To round out the disc, NEON has included a 9-minute blooper reel that collects flubbed lines, ruined takes, and on-set laughs. Seeing the moments where the cast breaks character or chokes on complex lines is fun, particularly with Keke Palmer featuring heavily as she repeatedly breaks down in laughter during intense face-offs with Moore.
There is an image gallery that collects high-resolution behind-the-scenes photos, storyboards, and design concepts that are a nice inclusion for art nerds wanting to look closer at the visual planning that went into the film's distinct aesthetic, especially looking at the side-by-side comparisons of early dress sketches against the garments worn on set.
Finally, the disc has standard promotional material like the film's teaser, theatrical trailers, and TV spots to retain the original marketing campaign on physical media. I Love Boosters isn't a film that appeals to everyone. It is aggressive, chaotic, loud, and comfortable making its audience feel uncomfortable. But if you like cinema that takes chances and has something real to say about greed and survival, it is one of the most vibrant films to come out recently.
NEON did this release right by providing a 4K transfer that is sharp, vibrant, and faithful to the theatrical experience and pairing it with special features that provide insight into the creative process rather than promotional filler. Between Riley's commentary track and the 32-minute making-of documentary, there is enough good extra material for physical media collectors and fans of the movie to make this disc a must-have.
I Love Boosters is available to own today!
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