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United Kingdom, United States · 2020
Rated R · 1h 51m
Director Ricky Staub
Starring Idris Elba, Caleb McLaughlin, Jharrel Jerome, Byron Bowers
Genre Drama, Western
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Fifteen-year-old Cole constantly gets into trouble at school, so his mother drives him to Philadelphia to live with his estranged father, Harp. But when Harp brings Cole inside, there is a horse in the living room, and Cole finds himself caught between a life of crime and his estranged father’s vibrant urban-cowboy subculture.
Slashfilm by Chris Evangelista
There’s a serious lack of movies about Black cowboys or Black equestrians in general, and by telling their story in the unlikeliest of settings, Concrete Cowboy feels vibrant and alive, even when it’s suffering from its own plotting problems.
The film is stirring when it really dives into specificity.
The Hollywood Reporter by David Rooney
The occasional touch of cliché or corny dialogue can't dampen the vibrant spirit of this moving, well-acted drama about a fractured family coming together in unexpected ways.
There’s certainly representational value in the way it brings a conventionally rousing narrative to such unorthodox material. At the same time, it leaves you wondering how much better the whole thing would have held together if it simply let the riders speak for themselves.
It’s a little corny at times, but it looks good and has heart—and, let’s be honest, Black cowboys are pretty damn cool.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
This is an old-fashioned father-son story and none the worse for that, but there is something a little slick and subdued about the way the story is resolved.
This is one of those rare, reframe-the-conversation films, like “Paris Is Burning,” “12 O’Clock Boys” and “Rize,” that take a very specific subculture and turn it into something universal and uplifting — only this one isn’t a documentary, despite the many real-world details that bring director Ricky Staub’s exceptional father-son drama to life.
The Playlist by Robert Daniels
Concrete Cowboy breathes new life into the western genre and sheds a brighter light on a faction of Black culture that was largely unknown by white audiences until today.
Concrete Cowboy is an urban drama, but it’s also a glimpse of a world most of us never knew, and a richly evocative introduction to a strange new world that has been right under our noses all along.
A heartfelt but ultimately hobbled coming-of-age drama.
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