Boost boldly goes
Wonderfully performed and written, Canadian film represents a new vision
Boost, a first solo feature from Montreal director Darren Curtis, is such a slick piece of filmmaking you may overlook the fact that it’s also a trenchant tale about immigrants. But that’s OK; no one likes being preached to. In fact, the closest the film comes to a “message” moment is when one character tells a very funny, very offensive joke about two immigrants competing to be the most Canadian.
Jahmil French and Nabil Rajo star as Anthony and Hakeem, high school students in Montreal. They’re black, anglophone and clearly immigrants, which puts them at a disadvantage among their peers. In the opening scene, a misunderstanding in class winds up with both of them suspended for a day.
The pals work at a car wash run by Hakeem’s uncle, Ram (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), who uses it as a front for more nefarious auto-related dealings. The boys, with an almost adorable combination of bluster and bravado, convince Ram to let them steal a luxury car wanted by a local chop shop. Success propels them down the criminal road, but Curtis’s screenplay intimates that the ride won’t always be smooth.
Sure enough, their next job — a simple delivery of some stolen wheels — goes awry after Anthony convinces Hakeem to phone a
store clerk they met the previous day, and instigates an impromptu joyride that ends in tragedy.
One of the wonders of the script is that it never telegraphs which way things are going to roll. Three-quarters of the way into the film, you could easily argue that things are going to slide into some kind of bloodbath, or that it’s all an innocent mix-up and the boys will be back in history class the next day.
It’s helped by the fact that the two young Toronto actors are similarly hard to pin down. Anthony is the cockier of the two, but each alternates between dangerous attitude and childhood naiveté. Half the time they seem like kids playing at being players.
In a weird coincidence, the boys’ supervisor at the car wash is played by Théodore Pellerin, who stars in another Canadian new release this week called Never Steady, Never Still. In another coincidence, neither film will attract nearly the audience it deserves. It’s a shame, because these two very different movies represent bold new visions in Canadian cinema. They’re our stories; we should watch them.