The Prestige TV Podcast - The Heartfelt Ride of 'Concrete Cowboy'

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

Logan Murdock and Shea Serrano of The Ringer saddle up to talk about the cowboy family drama 'Concrete Cowboy' streaming on Netflix. The movie may be treading on familiar territory, but they break down why it's still worth your time. Hosts: Logan Murdock and Shea Serrano Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There's a horse in your house. Oh, this is you right here. I ain't staying here. All right? So as you step out, that door stays locked till morning. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window?

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Crumbled bacon, corn salsa, 40 grams of protein, made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweetgreen wraps hit different. Order now at order.com. Hello and welcome to TV concierge, a podcast on the ringer.com that helps you navigate the vast streaming landscape. I am Logan Murdoch from the Real Ones, and I am joined by Shea Serrano, and we are here to talk about concrete cowboys. Shea, first thoughts, please. What up, baby. That's my first thoughts. We're back.

Do you listen to other episodes of TV conciergeers? I feel like me and you are definitely in first place right now. I feel like we're winning. I'll take your word for it. Shout out TV concierge. Yeah. Logan and Shay. Logan and Shay.

They got white guy names, but they're not white guys. That's our theme song right there. Every time they put us on a podcast. Every time. Yes. Every time Logan and Shea telling no lies. They're not white.

Oh, wait. They got white guy names, but they're not white guys. Yeah. We have to do the high five. We have to do the high five like the Wandsbrose. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're doing a, we're following the concrete cowboys in Edrus Elba film. Ejus Elba is doing the thing where he does where he has like the East Coast accent, but he's a cowboys.

but he's a cowboy and he's changing this kid's life. So let me give a little back thing real quick. I know we do spoilers. We don't really give a fuck about anybody's. You guys got to go see it. You guys got to watch the movie where you come here, whatever. But the storyline is basically it follows the, what I like to call the Furious Stiles memorials storyline. And that is the, I'll say that again.

Shout out Furious Styles, baby. Boys in the hood. Let's go. And that storyline is when a kid fucks. up and his mom sends him to see his pops. It happens all the time. It is cookie cut. We know this is going to happen. So basically, this kid, Cole, is messing up in Detroit. So his mom, because of course, sends him to an even worse environment in North Philadelphia. In the middle of the night, Shea, it's just, I don't, I don't think that this was just really good for him for little Cole to be

another terrible environment. He goes from Detroit to in the middle of night somehow ends up in Philly. And his mom literally leaves him. She says, yo, take your shit, go to this house, and then I'm literally leaving. I'm not, you can't come back on my car. I'm leaving. In the middle of the night, does she have a hotel? There's a lot of unanswered questions here. Just, I don't know what's going on. And then he meets Idris Elba, who is a cowboy in Philadelphia. And that's the storyline right now. And they try to take. teach him life lessons through horseback riding? Well, it should be mentioned that they don't start driving at night.

She picks them up from school and then they start driving from there. That's an eight, nine hour drive to get from Detroit to Philly. So it makes sense that they would arrive at night. Like she's clearly at the end of like dealing with all of the things that that Cole is doing. She's like, you know what, we're going. We're going right now. Right now is when you have to not be around me. Did this happen to you?

Did you get kicked out of your house when you were? were a kid, I got kicked out of my house when I was a kid. I did not get kicked out of my house when I, I've never gotten kicked out of my house. No, I mean, now did I do things that probably warranted me to get kicked out of the house? Probably, but it never got to that full point of getting kicked out. I got said to live with my grandma. My parents were together, so there was no, like, mom to send to the dad. They were both like, all right, you live with your grandma now.

Did you drop me off? One day, I'm like, oh, okay, this is, all right, that happened. Were you, were you like, were you defiance in that? Were you like, well, forget it. I'll go to my grandmas or were you like, no. Like Cole was like, where are you taking me? You're slamming on the door and stuff? I was fine.

I was like, all right, my grandma's cool. It's just the two of us now. So I'm like the man of the house. I was 12 years old or something when it happened. Sixth grade somewhere around there. Anyway, I'm just pointing out that's why they got there at night is my guess because that's a long, a long drive. Okay, quick question.

Do you think that she drove back to Detroit that night or does she get a hotel? She got a hotel. She got a hotel. Okay. She has to, right? Because you can't drive eight more hours. You can't be that mad to drive eight hours all the way to Philly and then drive eight hours all the way back home. You have to have some.

I think you could be that mad, honestly. Matt Barnes drove like a couple hours to beat up Derek Fisher. He was really mad. That's three hours, though. That's three hours. And he was going to his house. I don't know. I feel like you could do it.

You could do it. If you really want to, 16, 17. and 18 hours, you could do it. So I have a couple gripes with it. I think there was some very educational points in this film. And one of those of which the gentrification that is pushing these cowboys out of their residents because of, you know, there's developers, there's Starbucks coming in, there's things that are happening.

These people, it's method man makes an appearance and he's telling the black cowboys, you guys don't own none of this shit. You guys are renting it. Therefore, the city can take the things away from you. There are some great lessons in that. However, and we talked about this very briefly before the podcast, it just felt a really predictable, Shea. It just, it didn't.

It felt very predictable and cliche in a lot of moments in this film. Did you think that or am I completely off base with this? You're not, you're not off base, but here's the thing. This is very much a formula movie. All of the beats that you know are going to have. happen have to happen here. This is like when you watch a rom-com and you say, okay, they're going to meet, they're not going to get along, they're going to fall in love, they're going to have a big fight, and then there's going to be the big show of emotion where the person wins the other

person back. And like that's the steps that we have to have when you're making one of those movies. So when this movie started and you see her mom getting rid of Cole, Caleb McLaugh, the kid from Stranger Things. He's great. He's really, really good here. I was really excited to see him as like an older teenage person in a role. But anyway, you know when she's dropping him off, okay, he's going to be with his dad. His dad's going to be a hard ass. They're not going to get along at first. The dad is going to have some rules in place that the kid is going to buck back against.

He's going to realize I can't survive in the world without my dad at this particular moment, so he has to go back. He gets introduced to the horse and you're like, oh, okay, this is his horse. they're going to have their moment when they connect all of the we know all of the parts that are going to happen now it's just a matter of

are you a good enough actor to make this still have some emotion to it there were some times I'll be real with you that I was tuning out maybe because I just know how this goes

and I know what's going on and we knew Smush Parker was going to die we knew that like that Cole was going to corral the horse at the time I just I don't know it just seems

I love that. We knew it was going to happen, though. Like, I've seen that scene 27 times. I just knew it was going. They go on the, they do the human chain. You get the rope here. You do this. Then, like, I just, I don't know.

That's what I'm saying. Listen, all of these movies are going to have those same things that happen in them. There are only two ways. There are only two ways that you can draw a motion out of a viewer. And number one, the best option is you do a thing that has not been done yet, has not been seen yet. Everything is completely unexpected. That's the first option. which is the hardest one to do, which is why it happens so very rarely.

The second option is you're still doing the same stuff everybody else is doing, but you're doing it at a higher level. And when Caleb corrals the horse, you're like, yes, or when he breaks down on the couch. Did you set a thug tear when he corralled it when he corralled the horse? Did you set a little thug tear? I didn't, but I felt good. I felt real good. I felt watching this like I was like if it was one of my sons in this situation and I'm rooting for him to

come through, just come through, Caleb. Come on right now, you got to do it. Which one of your kids are you giving the rope to right now, do you think, in this situation? The human chain, you and Laramie, the kids are there. Which one are you saying giving you the rope? You're corraling this horse right now. At this particular moment, it's going to be one of the twins. It'll be the tall twin.

There's one twin who's like three inches taller than the other one. It's going to be him. Okay. He's just a little stronger right now. This is a horse we're talking about. This is a fucking horse. not a dog, not a pony, a horse. He's about 5-6 at this moment.

We play basketball all the time. He's starting to push me around a bit. You've got to have a little bit of muscle on you. Let me go with the tall twin right now. Okay, okay, for sure. One thing that I did like about this movie is it talked about Black Cowboys. And one of my favorite scenes is when they're all in a, before Method Man comes up and starts drinking drinks the beer,

when they're all in the circle, and they're talking about the history of cowboys and how black cowboys have been erased from society's view. And it's like they don't exist. I know that cowboys growing up in Oakland were a big part of Oakland's history. You could see horses being walked in West Oakland all the time. Every year we had a black cowboy parade. Up in the hills, if you go walk and go hiking,

you can see horses getting ridden all the time. How was that, was, is, did that resonate with you too, Shea? Is that like that in Texas as well where there are horses and there is a big black cowboy presence, but that's not necessarily being shown in mass media? I think that was the overall point for me is that we need to show America that this exists too. Yeah. So when we lived in Houston for 14 years, this is where Laramie is from. And there's a, there's like a black cowboy contingent in Houston.

they ride their horses around in the neighborhoods. So it was cool to see that part of it and to hear them talk about it. I do want to point out, the Latinos might have been doing cowboys before everybody else. We might be in first place here. We might, with the vacueros,

we might be in first place here. They mentioned it briefly. They mentioned it very briefly in the story. And they're like the black cowboys, brown cowboys, they go down a list of them. They gave you a little. They gave us a little.

They gave us a little. This is a very common pattern that we follow. When it comes to culture stuff, the black community is always in first place. Like, they do the thing first. You guys get Black Panther, and then the Latinos are like, oh, shit, that means we're up next. Or we're like, we're behind the Asians. It'll be black Asian, Latinos.

You know what I'm saying? So to watch this movie, it did make me feel like, oh, we're a few years away, but we're going to get one too. You're going to be cool. Y'all are big brother, big sister to us. In that regard. So that was cool. Yeah, I did, I did like that, I did like that part in there that it was showing that. Because I just, you know, when you think about Cowboys, you think about John Wayne,

and you think about all these like white guys that have done this and that, you know, there's none of us, Shay, there's none of us that are even, even around in these movies. You know what I mean? And I think that was a big step to show it. While I thought the movie had its corny takes, I did realize the importance of the movie. of showing that side of being a cowboy. And it was cool, man. And also, under what circumstances would you have to be in to have a full life horse in your living room?

That's wild. That was wild. That was... That's not practical. I couldn't live with a horse. It's not very practical. Did you like that the movie doesn't... It doesn't answer any real questions or there's no like...

There's no like electric boogaloo too. we have to save the rec center. There was not that. There was never like we're going to save the stables. It was always, eventually they'll be taken from us. How are we going to deal with it?

And then you have Idris's speech at the end where he's like, all of y'all stables were taken away and you're still here. They're taking ours right now. We're still here. That doesn't determine who we are, what we are.

I do like that, that there is no answer because quite frankly, there isn't an answer other than the system is fucked up. I did like that part of it Also, I think the biggest thing that I liked was Method Man, like, becoming a hero in this movie in a weird way. I wasn't expecting that.

Like, I thought he was going to be a double agent. My favorite scene in a movie, there's two favorite scenes I have. One was the Big Pow Wow. Also, a lot of weed in this movie, a lot of weed. And I'm like, where did you get this much weed from? But the first scene is the Big Powwow. And the second one is when they're going to the stable. And there's this big suspense of, damn, we're about to get caught.

like they do this fucking mission impossible mission into the stable and then method man comes out of nowhere and is like you guys are good the cops are coming in like five minutes but if i were you i would do this this and this and i was like okay method man i appreciate that you just bought us some more time before they eventually take all our shit away but thank you method man i like i like meth popping up and doing things like this because so i'm so used to seeing him as in my head he's just always cheese from the wire. And don't trust his guy. Don't trust him.

And now he's pivoting away from that into this new thing. It was cool to see Stringerbell and cheese wax staff together in like a thing again. I'm like, all right. This is neat. Well, I'm coming off the hills

with Method Man right now after I've been watching him on PowerBook. And I think this is a way better performance than he's ever done on PowerBook. But to see him be a lawyer and does this do like funny slick talking to now being a cop, he plays one character.

He just has different outfits in my mind. He plays the same kind of character every single time. It's like he doesn't know how right now to turn off his cool. He's just been cool his whole life and he doesn't know how to not do that. We're still transitioning here. You saw this thing happen with The Rock where it was like, The Rock is starring in The Mummy or whatever. And then it was like, okay, now it's Dwayne the Rock Johnson is starring in.

And then eventually they were just like, it was like they were separating themselves from that. I think Method Man is probably on that same path here. Eventually, we'll stop calling them Method Man. Some people will. I won't. Okay, so what's your overall feeling on the movie? Because I thought some great messaging, but overall just, I probably wouldn't watch it again. What do you think?

That sounds about right. Honestly, this sounds like it's Sunday at two in the afternoon and you just have like two hours before the thing comes on that you want to watch. Let's put this. let's put this on. Let's get like a couple of feelings in our chest. I think Caleb is going to be great. I think he's on his way toward like a big career. Yeah.

And I really, I really liked him. He was my favorite part of my favorite part of this. Clearly he's the star of the movie. Idris is there as like the frame to highlight what Caleb can do. Just is why we're coming. Idges is why we're there. He's,

yeah, yeah, he's why we're there. Yeah. But it's to showcase this guy. And he was, and he was just, Caleb was really,

really strong in here. I like this performance from him a lot. So I'm in on whatever he does next. Sign me up. Yeah. This is definitely the movie that I am putting on, but I'm also doing a lot of chores. I am, you know,

I'm doing stuff around the house. And then I'm like, okay, I'll stop for this one scene. Then I got to go back to do something else. It's just, that's what it is. Thanks again for listening. You can find me, Logan M on real ones. You can find Shea on the ringer and on real ones. We remain in first place, Logan.

First place, TV concierge. Ah! We're doing it. We're doing it. Yes. Come get the title. You want the crown come and get it. Charles Holmes, I'm looking at you.

Van Lathan, I'm looking at you. Mallory, I'm looking at you. Come for the title.