Concrete Cowboy is a good movie title. It’s alliterative, catchy, and tells what you need to know: it’s about a city cowboy. That being said, I would have gone with Cowboy Idris Elba Riding a Horse. I know Netflix doesn’t release viewership numbers, but I can guarantee a movie with that title would be the biggest hit in the streamer’s history.
Based on Greg Neri’s novel Ghetto Cowboy, Concrete Cowboy follows Cole (played by Stranger Things star Caleb McLaughlin), a troubled teen who is sent to live with his estranged father in North Philadelphia. His dad, Harp (Elba), teaches him about the urban cowboy (not the Travolta movie) lifestyle. “Fifty percent of all cowboys were Black,” someone says in the trailer above. “Even the Lone Ranger was black.” (It’s true.)
“For a long time, there’s been a real sort of mistelling of history around Black people and horses and cowboys and whatnot,” Elba told Variety about Concrete Cowboy. “It feels really apt to be able to tell a part history that’s been definitely buried, and in the case of Concrete Cowboy, that history is right now. Those stables — they face being taken away forever and, part of what [director Ricky Staub] said to me was that, ‘I’m hoping that we made this movie and they keep the stables, based on the fact that people fall in love with the story and history and heritage of the stables.’”
Here’s the official plot synopsis:
While spending the summer in North Philadelphia, a troubled teen (Caleb McLaughlin) is caught between a life of crime and his estranged father’s (Idris Elba) vibrant urban-cowboy subculture. Inspired by the novel Ghetto Cowboy by G. Neri, Concrete Cowboy is directed by Ricky Staub and co-stars Jharrel Jerome, Byron Bowers, Lorraine Toussaint and Clifford “Method Man” Smith.
Concrete Cowboy premieres on Netflix on April 2.
