Sneakerheads review – shoe business comedy lacks sole
I suspect that much of Sneakerheads’ appeal will depend on the level of the viewer’s own affection for Los Angeles, shopping and jokes about the suburbs. This friendly, if slight, LA-based buddy comedy on Netflix, about men who really love trainers, stars Black-ish’s Allen Maldonado as Devin, a stay-at-home dad who leaves an incriminating page open on his computer. His wife is furious. Is it porn? An affair? No, it’s news of a coveted “drop”, and Devin’s old passion for foot fashion is about to come roaring back into his life. It is an obsession that has caused him problems in the past, but now he’s five years free of it, and is such a dad that he wears Toms and is forced to endure polite conversation with his well-meaning, but utterly uncool, neighbour across the street.
A chance trip past an old haunt brings Devin back to his old life, and kicks off a “one more job” plot that takes some jarringly surreal turns, and shifts this from a relaxed comedy into a slightly more confused zany adventure. Having dropped off his kids at the babysitter, so he can wait in line for the trainers of his dreams, Devin runs into his former best friend, Bobby, played by a sweetly childlike Andrew Bachelor, who has been excommunicated from the friendship in disgrace. (When that is explained, it turns out to be quite the disgrace.) It marks the start of a long line of scams and schemes that take a growing crew of trainer fans on a tour of Los Angeles, and beyond.
Sneakerheads inhabit an underground economic world of wheeling and dealing, where a collectible pair of trainers can be bought for $220 and flipped for $450, 30 seconds later. Nori is a pint-sized shoe dealer and hyperbusy entrepreneur with multiple phones who has made a career out of sourcing rare trainers for rich clients, and she is the only one who seems capable of using the internet properly, which is handy for the story, though it does make this a bit less convincing. There are a lot of cameos – from basketball players, sort-of celebrities and trainer people – who often have their names shouted at them, just so we know they are not regular characters.
As Devin, Maldonado carries the story well, but it is a little flimsy, particularly if this is not your world. Bobby is such a catastrophe that it is hard to see why Devin would ever agree to do anything with him, let alone repeatedly. After their first long-shot attempt to catapult themselves back into the rare-sneaker business falls flat, it would make sense to cut their losses, but events take a turn for the whimsical.
At times, it is Entourage-level laddy: Devin’s wife exists only as a symbol of the suburban prison
From about halfway in, much of the season is dedicated to the hunt for a mythical pair of trainers called Zeroes, sought by a legendary collector, documented only in a handful of grainy photographs. This takes Devin and Bobby to Hong Kong, a truly unexpected plot twist that seems to happen only because they want to go to Hong Kong. It also turns this into a near-fantasy-esque quest, with some very odd flourishes. I could not tell if I admired its gumption for daring to be properly weird or if I was getting whiplash from the giddiness of it all. As the focus switches from midlife crisis to attempts to piece together a series of increasingly absurd clues, it loses some of its earlier breezy charm.
At times, it is Entourage-level laddy: until late in the season, Devin’s wife exists only as a symbol of the suburban prison that is dragging him away from his true love of shoes. Even when she gets a hint of her own storyline, it is to demonstrate the allure of a rare trainer, by substituting in a rare handbag. “You’re nothing but a husband,” says Bobby, as if it’s the ultimate insult Devin could face.
Gia, who runs the shop at the middle of everything, is sexy and loves shoes. That is the extent of it. She is a Manic Pixie-Heel Dream Girl. Even Nori, ostensibly the coolest character here, I think, is mostly lumbered with the task of making Stuey, the nerdiest of cohorts, a comic-book collector turned inept trainer collector, seem less of a thinly drawn caricature.
There are moments that attempt to imbue heart and (apologies) sole, too. Naturally, Devin learns the requisite lessons about what really matters in life, and Bobby’s cartoonish devotion to Devin and trainers does, of course, come from a place of passion and ultimately talent. It hits its stride when it isn’t trying so hard. The best moments are Devin, Bobby and whoever has attached themselves to them, rolling around the city, riffing on their dreams. For outsiders, it is all fairly niche and insular, but if you are a sneakerhead, this is custom-made for you.
