Concrete Cowboy wins the UnWestern award for being a Western somehow set in that classic Western setting of North Philadelphia. That’s right. Apparently there’s a group called the Fletcher Street Riders who do all those cowboy things we all know and love, just from the middle of a crowded city neighborhood. Because the location is so foreign to the genre, we get a pretty straightforward Western tale to help reset everyone’s bearings so by the time the credits roll, you’ll be excited to visit the North Philadelphia stables to see those Fletcher Street Riders patrol the streets.
After leaving Hawkins Indiana, Cole (Caleb McLaughlin) is wreaking havoc in Detroit Michigan, basically one step away from juvie. His mom, out of options, drives Cole to Philadelphia to live with his father Harp (Idris Elba) over the summer. Cole upon arriving is greeted by a sorta friendly next door neighbor (Lorraine Toussaint) and Harp’s horse, chilling in Harp’s apartment. Cole, bored and offput by the rider lifestyle, also reconnects with a childhood friend, Smush (Jharrel Jerome) who shows him the highfaluting but dangerous lifestyle of drug dealing, forcing Cole into an early crossroads of what he wants his life to become.
The joys of Concrete Cowboy are not the straightforward story, which you can see in my description. What’s cool about the movie is how well pieces of Western moviemaking fit into this story. Obviously the horses and cowboy hats are obvious markers, but Concrete Cowboy goes deeper than that with its metaphor. Six shooters are replaced by glocks. The front porch stoop might as well be a campfire where everyone tells stories and has a drink or two. The treasures/gold come in the form of brand new Air Jordans. And the big final goal is breaking out of prison.
Most importantly, Omar Little’s street commandment applies in North Philly just as it did in the Wild West: every man has a code. Yes the law exists, but its so rigid and foreign to the people living on Fletcher street that everyone has to find their own way. There’s a law man, living by his Method Man ways; there’s Smush, the criminal with his own code of behavior. And there’s Idris Elba’s Harp, the stoic emotionally distant John Wayne type that also has his own set of values. This means Cole has a host of paths he can choose as he becomes a man, carrying the emotional crux of the movie that also has standard blue collar issues like homelessness and threat of danger that keep the stakes constantly elevated.
I’m glad the Fletcher Street Riders got a solid movie out of their strange but awesome way of life. I’m also glad Caleb McLaughlin can join Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, and Noah Schnapp in the Stranger Things ascent from TV into movie making. That leaves Galen Matarazzo, good ol’ Dustin left, and I for one look forward to the Seth Rogen produced comedy he’s going to star in in a year or two.