As someone who doesn’t much care about designer clothes, I had no idea that the titular Boosters in Boots Riley’s new film were based on a real underground profession. Moreover, they’ve been around for a while. Riley wrote an ode to them in 2006 with his band, The Coup. When Riley introduced, I Love Boosters before a sold-out screening at the 2026 Seattle International Film Festival, he explained that Boosters perform the valuable service of “helping broke people look fly”. As the song goes…
A booster is a person who jacks from the retail
And sells it in the hood for dirt-cheap resale
In these hard times, they press on like Lee Nails
In all of my experience, their sex has been female
The film, I Love Boosters, opens with a bang and never lets up. Riley’s follow-up to 2018’s Sorry to Bother You is even more uncompromising than his debut. The frenetic opening credits (which use a custom font that is instantly iconic) zoom you through the Bay Area, to witness some of the most striking class disparity in the country. It’s the perfect setting for an allegorical anti-capitalist comedy. Our guide in this fashion underworld is Corvette (Keke Palmer), the leader of a prolific band of boosters called The Velvet Gang.
Early on, the film establishes the mechanics of a boost. The Velvet Gang, which also includes Mariah (Taylour Paige) and Sade (Naomi Ackie), assemble outfits from past boosts so that no one is suspicious of them when they’re in these high-end stores. Their outfits have lots of pockets and/or storage space. There’s a new outfit (and wig) for each boost. The production clearly kept costume designer Shirley Kurata (Everything Everywhere All at Once) VERY busy. Each ensemble is more outrageous than the last. Some of the looks are giving The Fifth Element on ayahuasca (complimentary). Whatever they wear, our leading ladies have no trouble slaying while they steal. Once in the targeted store, one of them creates a distraction while the other two cram their garments with as many designer threads as they can hold without busting the seams.
After safely absconding with the goods, Corvette hits the Oakland house parties to find people in need of a designer glow-up. The first sale we witness occurs after a guy goes home with her, expecting to hook up. He’s a little frustrated when she first reveals her ulterior motive. Still, he does not leave before buying some sick new shoes at a great price.
The Couture Robin Hood gig hits a snag when the mogul behind one of their frequent sources, Metro Designer, catches wind of the Velvet Gang and makes it her personal mission to bring them down. What Christie Smith (Demi Moore) doesn’t realize, or at least pretends not to know, is that Corvette had beef first. Corvette once showed Smith some of her own designs. Smith rejected a collaboration and sold the designs as her own. Corvette frequently sees her work in Metro Designer stores, which only fuels her rage and determination to get compensation one way or another.
Despite The Velvet Gang’s prolific heists, they are all still struggling to make ends meet. For Corvette, this financial anxiety is manifested through a growing Katamari ball of debt that lurks around every corner. It’s far enough away to not pose an imminent threat but always menacing and inching ever closer…
Effed by the Wind 