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While watching “Concrete Cowboy,” the Black cultural practice of call and response comes to mind. In music, it happens through the direct imitation between two instruments or by a phrase shouted and repeated back to the original caller. But call and response can also happen between different cinematic works.

In the case of “Concrete Cowboy,” the exploration of the strained yet special bond between a Black father and son feels like a sort of response to John Singleton’s “Boyz n the Hood,” despite whether the filmmakers intended it to be that way.

“Concrete Cowboy,” a Netflix film that stars Idris Elba and Caleb McLaughlin as father and son, is a coming-of-age story set in Philadelphia among a community of Black urban cowboys. It’s based on G. Neri’s novel, “Ghetto Cowboy.”

The film’s essence is the same as “Boyz n the Hood,” where a mother sends her rebellious son to live with his estranged father, whose purpose is to teach valuable life lessons to his son. While the plot is the same, this story places the protagonist into the context of the real Fletcher Street riders, who’ve been carrying on a 100-year-old legacy of Black cowboys who maintain stables and ride horses in North Philadelphia.

The film, therefore, has two tasks. One is to unfold Cole’s (Caleb McLaughlin) story as he forms a relationship with his father and matures in the process. The other is to preserve the history of the Fletcher Street riders and its disappearing territory — the city is currently developing on Fletcher Street’s land in real life — on screen. The film excels in both, with only a few missteps.

The most profoundly endearing aspect of “Concrete Cowboy” is the casting of Jamil Prattis and Ivannah Mercedes, who are Fletcher Street riders. While Prattis plays Paris, the wise cowboy in a wheelchair, Mercedes plays Esha, Cole’s unexpected but oh-so-right love interest. Mercedes’s presence as a young Black woman, and a cowgirl at that, from North Philadelphia is incredibly refreshing. She is sensitive, hard-working and hopeful.

Prattis’s character puts things into perspective for young Cole, who is hiding a life of dealing drugs on the street with his cousin Smush (Jharrel Jerome) from his no-nonsense cowboy father Harp (Idris Elba), who spent time in prison while Cole was growing up.

Throughout the film, Paris reveals a sort of hidden double meaning in “riding” that the film thematically plays with. Riding is either what you do to sell drugs on the street or what you do on the backs of horses to stay off the street, depending on who someone asks. Both are seen as modes of survival in this North Philadelphia community, but one is choosing a life of danger that can prove fatal.

In this way, one can see the response “Concrete Cowboy” makes to the call of “Boyz n the Hood” — the effect that havoc drug dealing and life on the street can have on Black boys without an intervention, such as a strong outside force who steers the young person from a doomed fate. It’s also about a community coming together to protect and support one another.

At times, “Concrete Cowboy” borders on cliche and overdramatization in its trope of young Black teens getting involved with drugs and crime. There is also some cultural oversight from white director Ricky Staub. In one scene, Cole goes to work at the messy, manure-covered stables in his fresh, brand-new white Jordans. Culturally speaking, this just would not happen. For many in the Black sneakerhead community, shoes and the care for them is sacred.

The scene was based on an experience Staub had one day when he worked at the Fletcher Street stables in brand-new white sneakers. For a film that aims for realism and authenticity of an actual community, this was not it. However, the film saves itself by giving each character, even Smush, dreams, goals and moments of tenderness.

Staub’s dedication to depicting in earnest the community of the Fletcher Street riders and their mission is noteworthy. Gathered around a bonfire in a tin trash can, the Black cowboys, and Black cowgirl Nessie (Lorraine Toussaint), discuss the erasure of Black cowboys from history. But the film “Concrete Cowboy” will not let that happen.

Published on April 11, 2021 at 9:29 pm