Boots Riley once more wields anti-capitalist satire on a level that feels like a subversive underground comic book brought to life. Grander than his previous project, I Love Boosters takes aim at a larger target in the fashion industry, but doesn’t reduce it to a single shot; it aims less with a sharp rifle and more with a missile launcher. It’s also just bonkers and colorful in its wacky production design and absurd twists, making for a movie as unpredictable as it is visually intoxicating.

The “boosters” are a trio of shoplifters led by the weary designer Corvette (Keke Palmer). Disillusioned with the fashion industry she can’t break into, she teams up with Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige) to swipe an abundance of expensive clothes and resell them to poorer communities at a lower price. While the film doesn’t shy away from the good they do for struggling communities (especially the boosters hiding out in a restaurant shut down), it also highlights the hilarity of such an operation. Distractions become a key factor in these many heists, but the lack of employees at the many retailers makes it relatively easy to walk out with dozens of items shoved into your outfit. Akin to Sorry To Bother You, the group also uses a tactic to seem more white that is too ridiculous to spoil.

There are plenty of strange characters thrown into this quest for cloth and revenge on the corporations that dictate our necessity. Demi Moore plays the fashion-elite Christie Smith, looking and speaking like Cruella DeVille fused with Andy Warhol, driven by an egotistical desire to manipulate the world into being her canvas. LaKeith Stanfield pops in as an unnamed love interest for Corvette, with a warped secret that doesn’t get revealed until the film’s mind-blowing sex scene, abruptly and hilariously switching genres between coitus. Don Cheadle is almost unrecognizable as the lecturing Doctor Jack, a man all about building up the community, until his scheme becomes obvious from his ridiculous diagram. Poppy Liu eventually joins the boosters, and while she is one of the more sympathetic and relatable characters for her plight, she also arrives with just one of the many sci-fi additions that change the dynamics of the shoplifting ensemble.

There’s never a dull moment in Riley’s wild world of exaggerated design. Clothing is impractically elaborate, colors pop from every surface, and buildings are slanted in a manner that is artistically self-indulgent for the characters yet refreshingly expressive of vocal themes. To an oddly eccentric tune, the film finds so many angles that it never settles on a routine, constantly throwing curveballs. Consider the retail stores that Corvette and her crew lift from, each embracing an obnoxious uniformity of a single color that constantly shifts, including the aggravating store manager played by Will Poulter. There’s also a scrappy charm to the visual effects, in how the movie uses stop-motion and miniature techniques that not only add visual charm but also fit the otherworldly quality of the uproarious allegories and fantastical elements. Without giving too much away, this is a movie where the heroes figuratively and literally speed up a worker revolt and deconstruct the industry that has wronged them.

But what might be the most daring inclusion is the sensation of victory amid radicalism. The film is already such an off-the-wall fantasy for its kaleidoscopic spitting on capitalism that melts the flavorless grime with rainbow acid, but there’s a more or less happy ending to all this that, while maybe too hopeful, is a wholly necessary sensation. What audience wouldn’t want to see the evil fashion designer taken down a peg, small businesses succeed in communities that need them, and factory workers not die in hazardous production environments? Throughout the film, there is a hallucination of a ball of worries that constantly follows Corvette, built from overdue bills and regret. By the end of the film, the ball isn’t gone, but it is smaller and less intimidating. All the problems in the world won’t go away with a revolution, but it will certainly be easier to manage.

I Love Boosters is a rare gem of a movie that feels as radically essential as it is charmingly entertaining with its swirl of the surreal. Boots Riley has a gift for taking a satirical premise, slathering it with fittingly absurd visuals, and finding incredible ways to make it weirder. This potent picture of vibrant stabs with all-caps ART makes for an experience that is equal parts eye candy and brain food. Eat-the-rich movies don’t taste much sweeter than this.

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