Concrete Cowboy (2020)

Concrete Cowboy (2020)

 

6/10

 

Starring

Idris Elba

Caleb McLaughlin

Jharrel Jerome

Byron Bowers

 

Directed by Ricky Staub

 

The movie deals with an aspect of the black American life that is not well known, here we are looking at black people running stables. They are caring for horses and training them at Philadelphia. The movie itself is set based on true events, while the story attached is based on a novel which fictionalized the black neighborhood of horse riders.

With powerful acting from all involved the case of a father and son trying to form a bond after years long of separation is what this movie deals with. The novel is Ghetto Cowboy by Greg Neri.

This western drama is about how a father had to give up raising his son, with the hope that the son will grow up strong, independent and well-off without him having an impact. As you could guess that did not happen. Harp (Idris Elba) had to face his fifteen-year-old son (Cole played by Caleb McLaughlin) and they had to work through things together. While Cole has to learn to grow up fast because his mother is not around to pick him up when he messes up.

Cole grew up with his mother in Detroit and has been a handful for her, getting into trouble and was facing expulsion for fighting in school, again. She being fed up called Harp that he is bringing their son to him, as she was fed up trying to turn him to a better person.

She takes him to Philadelphia to be with a father he never knew. First day was not going well with Cole leaving home trying to get back to Detroit when he met someone called Smush who knew him when he was still a child. When Smush takes him home, Harp comes out with his clothes and throws it at him in front of Smush telling him, if he wants to hang with Smush then he cannot live in his house. Cole leaves with his clothes and goes about knocking on the door of old faces. The two places he went he could not get a place to stay, so he breaks into the stables of one of his father’s neighbors and sleeps in one of the stalls with one of the horses.

When the owner of the stable woke up and sees him cuddle up near her horse which they have been trying to break, she wakes him. She then tells him that the horse now belongs to him, which annoyed him because he did not want to have anything to do with all this riders and stables. He made up with his father and we watch as he bonded with the horse.

The movie is not one of those magical journeys it is ok to see if you have nothing else on your plate.