The one thing anyone can’t say about a Boots Riley production is that you know what to expect. Trust me, you can’t. Even when trailers for the rapper-turned-director’s latest movie paint a straightforward concept—in I Love Boosters’ case, shoplifters taking on a corrupt fashion mogul—the execution is anything but. It is satirical absurdism cranked up to at least 15, introducing more and more genre-bending gimmicks per scene yet never winking once as the ridiculousness piles up. There is a bit of bloat to how these gimmicks flow together, but that doesn’t stop his sophomore feature from being one of 2026’s most inventive movies by a long shot.

The closest thing in tone to match I Love Boosters is Everything Everywhere All at Once, another movie that introduced outlandish concepts but made the drama an extension of its gags. Just like the Daniels’ Oscar-winning hit, Riley has stacked his film with a cast willing to sincerely embrace the absurd. Leading the charge is aspiring designer Corvette (Keke Palmer), a fashion booster: She poaches high-end outfits in order to resell them at more reasonable prices. Her motive is partially financial—Corvette lives in an abandoned restaurant with her friend Sade (Naomi Ackie)—and partially about sending a message against arrogant fashion CEO Christie Smith (Demi Moore) and her ubiquitous Metro Designer stores. Aligned with Sade and fellow partner-in-crime Mariah (Taylour Paige), the trio launch all sorts of schemes to rob Christie’s monochromatic outlets blind, especially after she steals one of Corvette’s ideas and makes it her new central attraction.

Populating our ladies’ oddball corner of San Francisco is a wellspring of bizarre individuals and visual gags that deliberately blend into the landscape. Christie runs her empire from a skyscraper built on an angle like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a financial grifter named Dr. Jack (Don Cheadle) hosts meetings promising wealth through community-building, and Corvette regularly gets chased by a massive boulder made up of eviction notes. And that’s to say nothing of her nameless romantic interest (Sorry to Bother You’s LaKeith Stanfield), whose flashback detailing his sexual history culminates in an unexpectedly hellish visual reveal. Yet the strangeness is taken at face value, which heightens the amoral corporate greed on display and its stranglehold on everything from working conditions to news propaganda.

If you thought the first act was strange, what happens next makes it look grounded by comparison. Corvette and crew take up jobs at a local Metro store in hopes of stealing its wares, only to discover someone has beaten them to the punch. Without spoiling too much, this leads to them meeting Jianhu (Poppy Liu), a woman retaliating against Christie’s exploitation of Chinese sweatshop workers, thanks to an unexpected plot device. Suffice to say, utilizing the device turns everything in the film on its head. Or, in some cases, turns I Love Boosters’ subtext into literal text on top of punchlines. From that point on, anything goes with this movie’s brand of off-the-wall black comedy.

There’s a lot Riley’s trying to say about the corporate world’s sins, even if, like his abundance of jokes, it doesn’t always mesh into a cohesive whole. There’s simply too much happening at once. Boosters has an “everything and the kitchen sink” mentality, where an unexpected twist after a shocking reveal prevents the story from falling along predictable lines. It’s a cartoon world and, at times, you sense that the absurdity and satire take priority over the character drama navigating this realm of ridicule. Yet this world is so delightfully unhinged that its excess gradually morphs into a hidden strength.

Truth be told, it’s not often you watch a movie where the endgame can’t possibly be predicted. Especially when Riley begins playing with all kinds of visual styles for the sake of comedy, action, and heist shenanigans, with the final act alone featuring stop-motion, miniature models, and shocking body horror. But even if the pieces don’t always sync up, there is no shortage of ambition, color palettes, and clever gags to make those pieces pop individually. If moviegoers are in search of some genuine creativity in cinema, I Love Boosters is just the bargain they’re looking for.