“… has tried to extract snippets from every director he admires and has potential. But he will need to refine it to one he can call his own. And he needs a script editor to cut the unnecessary nonsense.“
Con Nats
2.5 Clothes racks
This is one crazy film to try to encapsulate and review.
Corvette is one sassy lead of the Velvet Gang, an audacious gang of Boosters, who steal racks of clothing from high end stores and sell them on the streets. They like to target fashion icon Christie Smith (Demi Moore) who spouts new age drivel to justify her brand.
They decide to take revenge on her stores (even though she was already a main target) after Christie steals one of Corvette’s designs (although it’s unclear how, but let’s not quibble) and an exploited Chinese factory worker wants to show the world that stonewashed jeans cause cancer for the workers.
How they achieve this goes into a wacky world of satire, leaning buildings, portals and crazy comedy. The storytelling is a mishmash of ‘Everything Everywhere etc’, any Spike Lee film with a dash of Lynch. Structure and story are thrown into the back of the escape van in a heap.
Writer-Director Boots Riley is a rapper who has thrown everything into this (and seeing what sticks). It’s a mish-mash of styles designed to dazzle and entertain but can overwhelm you if you’re looking for a cohesive story. To call it a biting satire on the fashion industry doesn’t do it justice, but there isn’t a term that encapsulates what this film is trying to say. How to explain a character who sucks souls through a woman’s genitalia?
To attract actors such as Don Cheadle and Demi Moore this script has much to say and gives them, especially Demi, lots of space to go over the top and keep going. The overacting is unleashed. Keke Palmer as Corvette does well to keep her character within some realistic guardrails, while her support cast roam freely, looking for fun.
To his credit, Boots takes care with every scene in terms of lighting and framing and extracting laughs from the absurdity of the fashion world. (The leaning building is a hilarious concept.) He has tried to extract snippets from every director he admires and has potential. But he will need to refine it to one he can call his own. And he needs a script editor to cut the unnecessary nonsense.
This film is colourful, absurdist and definitely aimed at younger audiences who enjoy film for an experience rather than an insight.
2.5 Clothes racks
Con Nats, On The Screen
