‘Concrete Cowboy’ Review: Horses in the Back

Straight out of the gate, Concrete Cowboy looks like any other movie about a Black boy’s trials and tribulations navigating poverty, complete with a mother at wit’s end who abandons the boy at his never-present father’s doorstep. It traverses all the cliché narrative that makes up most Black YA movies in the first five minutes. Then it pivots and never comes close to the cookie-cutter ‘poverty porn’ we’ve been forced to consume for the last two decades. CONCRETE COWBOY – (L-R) Idris Elba as Harp and Caleb McLaughlin as Cole. Cr. Aaron Ricketts / NETFLIX © 2021 The film follows Cole (Caleb McLaughlin) from getting bounced from school in Detroit and sent to North Philly to live with his father Harp (Idris Elba), a legit hood cowboy. Pulled between his growing relationship with his father and their horse-riding community, the specter of gentrification, and getting caught up in the street life, Cole has to make some important choices. Concrete Cowboy delivers a solid and realistic coming of age movie with the perfect synergy of veteran actors/performers (Elba, Lorraine Toussaint, and Method Man), rising stars (Oscar winner Jharell Jerome and McLaughlin), and local talent courtesy of the real-life Fletcher Street riders. CONCRETE COWBOY – (L-R) Caleb McLaughlin as Cole and Jharrel Jerome as Smush. Cr. Aaron Ricketts / NETFLIX © 2021 Horses in These Streets From the rural backwood farms of Tallahassee, Florida to the urban colonial cityscape of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ellis Fe…