There’s no predicting what comes next in Boots Riley’s latest film, “I Love Boosters.”

The rapper-turned-director, who burst onto the film scene with the 2018 feature film “Sorry to Bother You,” is known for his surreal, absurdist visual style and pointed political messaging. “I Love Boosters” is no exception.

Inspired by his 2006 song with The Coup, “I Love Boosters!,” the film follows a group of Bay Area-based “boosters,” a type of person who, as Riley’s lyrics state, “jacks from the retail / And sells it in the hood for dirt-cheap resale.” The all-women crew, coined the Velvet Gang, is led by Corvette (Keke Palmer) — who squats in an abandoned chicken restaurant — and her friends Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige).

A lot is weighing on Corvette, literally visualized by a giant ball of unpaid bills and other anxieties that rolls toward her several times throughout the film. Still, this is only part of her story. At her core, she is a fashion designer. She both loathes and looks up to famous designer Christie Smith (Demi Moore), who runs the popular brand Metro.

Christie is a heartless, Cruella de Vil-like figure who puts profit above all, exploiting overseas labor and churning out so-called luxury fashion at mass scale. Riley frames her as a symbol of corporate excess — someone who commodifies creativity. One of the film’s funniest visual gags is Christie’s 45-degree slanted office that no one except Christie can seem to maneuver.

Riley takes another stab at money culture with the character of Dr. Jack, played by an unrecognizable Don Cheadle. Sade and many others get sucked into his friendly preaching, which is clearly a pyramid scheme. Where Christie takes a top-down approach, Dr. Jack works from the bottom up. Together, they form two sides of the same rotten coin: one in a tilted penthouse, one in a discount furniture store, both in the business of taking from people who have very little left to give.

The Velvet Gang operates in a world with seemingly low consequences and a surreal edge. Corvette leaves a store in a tracksuit filled to the brim with stolen clothing. Mariah can hold her breath to turn light-skinned when they steal from boutique stores — a biting, literalized joke about colorism and access.

The three women even end up getting hired at a Metro store — their flamboyant, ultra-controlling manager played to comedic perfection by Will Poulter. From there, they plan to make their big splash by stealing its entire inventory.

They are beaten to the chase by Jianhu (Poppy Liu), a Chinese factory worker who teleported to the Bay Area and began instantaneously relocating a shopful of Metro clothes back to China via a mysterious teleportation device.

“I Love Boosters” then descends into a frenetic, farcical second act that works until it doesn’t. The device seems to be understood only by the constantly vaping, politically-minded Metro worker Violeta (Eiza González), who offers a long-winded explanation that brings laughs and more confusion.

Still, the teleportation device bridges the main California setting with the Chinese factory subplot, allowing for heartwarming scenes of solidarity between the Chinese workers and the Velvet Gang, who all seek revenge on Christie, uniting across borders in a shared resistance to exploitation.

Not all of the film’s chaos carries such clear ideological weight — best exemplified by Lakeith Stanfield’s character, an aspiring model whom Corvette is inexplicably drawn to. The ridiculous reveal about his character arrives as one of the film’s most shocking moments, but it becomes more of a disjointed subplot than anything consequential.

Nevertheless, “I Love Boosters” is a visual treat — from the stark monochrome of Metro’s stores and the bright wigs of the Velvet Gang to the creative incorporation of stop motion animation. The story is fast-moving and exciting, stitched together by brilliantly timed match cuts.

By the end, however, the audience becomes so wrapped up in the various converging absurdities that they miss some of the characters’ interiority, left without much sense of closeness to any of the boosters, including Corvette herself. The much-emphasized clash between Corvette and Sade feels quite forced, and Mariah is relegated to a happy-go-lucky side role.

Riley loves boosters, but audiences may leave wishing they knew them a bit better.

—Staff writer Capri S. Wayne can be reached at [email protected].