Idris Elba’s acclaimed film ‘Concrete Cowboys’ has been picked up by Netflix. The drama film has only been screened at the TIFF so far and no public viewing has happened yet. There has been no release date set by the OTT giant either, but the streaming platform is said to be planning to roll out the film in 2021. This news was first broken by The Hollywood Reporter.
Ricky Staub’s directorial debut ‘Concrete Cowboy’ is a story about a young Black teenager who finds an unlikely home amongst the horse enthusiasts in a Philadelphia ghetto. This film was developed from the novel Ghetto Cowboy by Greg Neri, who was in turn inspired to write this novel from learning a few true stories about ‘Black’ American Cowboys.
Unlike the old popular Western flicks of Hollywood, African Americans actually constituted around 25% of American cowboys in the mid 19th century. This was completely different from their depiction in the old films, where they were barely shown at all. We are finally, after many years, watching a coming of age film integrated into an African American western flick.
The film stars Caleb McLaughlin (from Netflix’s Stranger Things) as a young 15 year old from Detroit who keeps getting in trouble at school, so his mother sends him to Philadelphia to spend his summer with his non-existent father (portrayed by Idris Elba). He is creeped out by a horse in his father’s house, but eventually warms up to it more than he does with his father. With the help of his neighbour Nessi (portrayed by Lorraine Toussaint), he gets work clearing up the stables and taking care of the horses there. A great threat comes in the way of real estate moguls, trying to buy up the land used by the cowboys; who are planning to eventually get rid of the animals in its entirety.
The film was set to release world-wide in the Telluride Film Festival prior to its cancellation due to Covid-19. The film premiered in the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13. The Western has been getting rave reviews from critics all over and has especially praised the acting chops of Elba and McLaughlin.