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Concrete Cowboy: Where is the film set? Is it based on a true story?
Tue Apr 06, 2021 at 10:59pm ET
Netflix’s latest drama, Concrete Cowboy is set during summer in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The movie follows a teenager stuck at the crossroads of a troubled life or following in his estranged father’s cowboy-booted footsteps.
Stranger Things’ Caleb McLaughlin plays the lead character, 15-year-old Cole. After he is expelled from school, he is sent to live with his father (Idris Elba).
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Here, he gains insight into his father’s work rehabilitating horses for cowboys at the Fletcher Street Stables. The stables provide a tight-knit and supportive community of people who bond over their adoration for horse culture and their generation roots in the area.
WHAT IT S ABOUT:
Sent to live with his estranged father for the summer, a rebellious teen finds kinship in a tight-knit Philadelphia community of Black cowboys.
WHAT WE THOUGHT:
A struggling teen gets sent to live with some eccentric family member out on a farm and heals through their growing bond with some forlorn animal. Sound too familiar? It s a popular trope that s seen many reimaginings throughout cinematic history, weighed down by its repetition and unoriginality.
In comes Netflix s
Concrete Cowboy - the same story but set in Pennsylvania s urban streets, with gang violence and systemic American racism. What s intriguing, however, with this story is that it s based on the real-life black cowboys of the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club, a community of African-Americans who use horseriding to keep at-risk youth out of trouble and provide upliftment programmes. Their history in the city covers more than a century, standing proud in opposition to the whitewashing of cowboy
From left, Idris Elba and Caleb McLaughlin in Concrete Cowboy. (Aaron Ricketts/Netflix)
Published April 07. 2021 1:18PM
Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post Get the weekly rundown Email Submit
Anyone lucky enough to have seen the horseback riders of North Philadelphia in person knows firsthand the frisson that first glimpse produces: Is that really a horse? In the heart of Rust Belt Philly? At its best, the uneven but good-hearted family film Concrete Cowboy is animated by that same shock of disbelief and delight made all the more appealing by the fact that it s Idris Elba coolly clip-clopping down the city s unforgiving streets.
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Concrete Cowboy on Netflix, the coming of age drama starring Idris Elba and Caleb McLaughlin as a father and son who spend a tumultuous summer bonding over a series of devastating events and new beginnings at a famed North Philadelphia stable is finally here. Weâve already shared what critics thought of Ricky Staubâs directorial debut based on the real Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club and Greg Neriâs YA novel
Ghetto Cowboy, but now itâs time to see what the audience thinks.
With a Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score currently sitting at 79% itâs safe to say that Netflix subscribers are finding something (or some things) they like about