Concrete Cowboy (2020)

Concrete Cowboy (2020)

 

6/10

 

Starring

Idris Elba

Caleb McLaughlin

Jharrel Jerome

Byron Bowers

 

Directed by Ricky Staub

 

The movie explores an aspect of Black American life that isn’t widely known: Black people running stables, caring for horses, and training them in Philadelphia. The story is inspired by true events, while the narrative itself is based on the novel Ghetto Cowboy by Greg Neri, which fictionalizes a Black neighborhood of horse riders.

With powerful performances from the cast, the movie centers on a father and son trying to rebuild their bond after years of separation. This western drama portrays a father, Harp (Idris Elba), who gave up raising his son in hopes that the boy would grow up strong, independent, and successful without his influence. As you might guess, that didn’t work out. Harp is now faced with his 15-year-old son, Cole (played by Caleb McLaughlin), and they must navigate their relationship while Cole learns to grow up quickly—especially since his mother is no longer around to catch him when he stumbles.

Cole grew up with his mother in Detroit and was a handful for her, constantly getting into trouble. After facing expulsion for yet another fight at school, his mother, fed up, decides to take him to Philadelphia to live with Harp—a father Cole has never known.

Their first day together doesn’t go well. Cole tries to run away and return to Detroit, but he runs into Smush, an old acquaintance who remembers him as a child. Smush takes him back home, but when Harp sees them together, he throws Cole’s clothes at him and tells him that if he wants to hang out with Smush, he can’t stay under his roof.

Cole, now carrying his clothes, goes knocking on doors of familiar faces to find a place to stay. When that doesn’t work out, he breaks into the stables of one of Harp’s neighbors and sleeps in a stall with a horse. The next morning, the stable owner finds him curled up next to the horse they’ve been trying to break. She wakes him and declares that the horse is now his, much to his annoyance—he wants nothing to do with the riders or the stables.

As the story progresses, Cole reconciles with his father, and we see him begin to bond with the horse.

This movie isn’t a magical journey, in fact it is not magical at all nor is it memorable, but it’s a decent watch if you don’t have anything else on your plate.