Back in 2018, rapper and activist Boots Riley made his feature film debut with Sorry to Bother You. It’s a caustically funny satire about racial and economic disparity, following a telemarketer played by LaKeith Stanfield, who puts on a “white voice” to succeed. But it also has horse people. That was, for me at least, the point when Sorry to Bother You threatened to break the spell, even in an absurdist fun-house mirror of our fraught world that Riley makes his soapbox.
The brash film-maker doesn’t make it easy to love his gonzo agitprop. That’s part of his whole appeal, really. He dares us to resist and gets away with it because he’s such a compelling and necessary voice.
