REVIEW: Caleb McLaughlin & Idris Elba Give Strong Performances In Coming Of Age Tale, Concrete Cowboy

Home isn’t a place, it is a family. In Ricky Staub’s directorial debut, we watch as a young man learns that home is not a building with four walls, but the people you call family. Based off the real-life Fletcher Street Stables and on the novel, Ghetto Cowboy, by G. Neri, Concrete Cowboy follows Cole (Caleb McLaughlin), a young boy who is left on his Dad’s (Idris Elba) doorstep in Philadelphia after his mother no longer handle his destructive ways. It is here that Cole finds himself bunking with a horse and hanging out with cowboys. Torn between who he was and who he wants to be, we watch as Cole goes from a naïve child to a young man.

Idris Elba and Caleb McLaughlin lead the movie, but this story really belongs to McLaughlin. He has come so far from when fans first saw him make his debut in the hit series, Stranger Things, and this film continues to prove he has a place in the acting world. McLaughlin’s ability to show the inner struggle Cole faces whilst trying to find his place in the world is a sight to be seen, Elba is wonderful as urban cowboy, Harp, but there wasn’t enough of him in the film. His character is used primarily as a mentor to McLaughlin’s Cole rather than an actual father figure. It’s almost disappointing that Elba was not given more material to work with, but what viewers do see if wonderful to say the least. The duo is joined in the film by Jharrel Jerome as Cole’s lost friend, Smush, Lorraine Toussaint as Nessie, and Cliff “Method Man” Smith as Leroy.

The addition of actual members of the Fletcher Street Stables to the cast was pretty cool to see. Viewers will have no idea that they are a part of the cast until the credits role. The group fits in seamlessly with the rest of the veteran cast. However, I do wish the film had spent more time on the history of the stables. The Fletcher Street Stables is highly regarded in the Philadelphia area and a little bit more detail on how it was created and the affect that it had on the community would have been a nice touch. I understand that wasn’t the point of the movie, but it might have saved me sometime from having to google it.

Concrete Cowboy is a solid film, with a few flaws. The film is definitely a coming of age story and pretty predictable, but McLaughlin and Elba give strong performances. I would recommend checking this movie out, at some point, when it is released to Netflix.

Grade: C+