Concrete Cowboy (2020)

Directed by: Ricky Staub | 111 minutes | drama | Actors: Idris Elba, Caleb McLaughlin, Lorraine Toussaint, Jharrel Jerome, Ivannah-Mercedes, Jamil Prattis, Method Man, Byron Bowers, Liz Priestley, Michael Ta’Bon, Devenie Young, Swen Temmel, Patrick McDade

What are the chances of meeting a real cowboy on the American prairie? Minimal. What are the chances of meeting an African American cowboy in the Philadelphia ghetto? Minimal, but not impossible. Just as there used to be African American cowboys, today there are metropolitan African Americans who keep stables and ride horses. Like the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club in north Philadelphia.

This club of urban cowboys is the beating heart of the fictional film ‘Concrete Cowboy’. In it, we follow Cole, a 15-year-old high school student who leads a rebellious life in Detroit. When Cole threatens to be banned again, his mother stables him for a summer with his father in Philly. There, Cole is torn between the unhealthy pleasures of a junior gangster existence and the cozy universe of cowboys and horses.

‘Concrete Cowboy’ shows that both horse and adolescent sometimes need to be tamed before it can start a useful life. Taming a teenager is not easy. Before Cole becomes a full member of the equestrian club, he must first do the more tedious chores. But the club is also a place where he can learn from broken souls like Paris, who ended up in a wheelchair after a shooting.

This heartwarming story comes to us at a leisurely pace, as we marvel at the photogenic poverty of the ghetto. It looks as authentic as the dilapidated Baltimore landscape in ‘The Wire’. And just like in ‘The Wire’, the ghetto is populated by people of all walks of life, who have in common that they want to make something of life, with a gun in hand or a horse on a lead. The most beautiful location is the meadow on the edge of the city, where horses and riders get a sense of freedom.

The main roles in this coming of age are played by Idris Elba (“The Wire”) and Caleb McLaughlin (“Stranger Things”). The (urban) music is also fine, the dialogues are smooth and witty, and there is also room for tension and emotion. But this isn’t Disney about a boy who goes from a metropolitan hell to a horse paradise. This is a film about a meadow with horses on the edge of a ghetto. And that’s more interesting than it sounds.