Concrete Cowboy

Following in the hoof prints of Brett Fallentine's Fire on the Hill (2018), Ricky Staub's debut feature provides another insight into the role played by urban stables within America's black communities. Drawing on Greg Neri's novel, Ghetto Cowboy, the action centres on Cole (Stranger Things star Caleb McLaughlin), an alienated teenager who is deposited by his exasperated mother with Harp (Idris Elba), the father he barely knows. From the moment he finds a horse in the front room, Cole knows he isn't in Detroit any more. But he's gradually accepted by the cowboys at Philadelphia's Fletcher Street Stables, particularly Paris (exceptional debutant Jamil Prattis), whose life-changing injury during a corner shootout should steer Cole away from the flash lifestyle offered by his drug-dealing childhood friend, Smush (Jharrel Jerome). It doesn't, but Staub and Dan Walser largely avoid the hood clichés in showing how strangers can discover and come to respect each other over a fireside chat and John Coltrane.