Red Rocket

*Watched at Cannes 2021*

American indie-darling Sean Baker has always worked on the ground level when making his films. He often casts non-professional actors and plants his audience in the ironically unglamorous parts of America, such as the dingy Magic Castle motel located next to Walt Disney World. Baker's budgets are small, with "The Florida Project'' carrying a total cost of $2,000,000, which is roughly the amount spent to have Arnold Schwarzenegger speak one hundred words in "T2: Judgement Day." Now in 2021, Baker is back to shine a light on lower-America with "Red Rocket'', which debuted in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

Opening with the catchy rhythms of NSYNC's "Bye Bye Bye", former pornstar Mikey Saber has returned to the deadbeat town of Texas City. Mikey had been at the top of the porn scene for several years but eventually found his way out the door with some questionable career moves. With nowhere else to go, he begs and pleads his way into crashing with his former pornstar ex-wife Lexi, who, like him, was a shining star that has fallen back to the ground and lives with her poverty-stricken mother in the middle of nowhere.

Mikey is a guy who always has a plan, but never a way to execute it. He does have a plan to get back to Los Angeles and revitalize his career, but it requires him to reconnect with some characters from his past who hate his guts.

Both literally and metaphorically, "Red Rocket" is a ballsy movie. Baker has always found a fascination with the seedier side of America, which is the side that is often unauthentically portrayed in Hollywood (I'm looking at you "Hillbilly Elegy"). His characters are often complicated and morally ambiguous, such as Halley from "The Florida Project". But Baker doesn't wallow in their pain and use it as a ploy for sympathy (again, looking at you "Hillbilly Elegy"). Instead, he wants us to understand their desperation and see how so many people in this situation can rationalize their actions.

"Red Rocket" doesn't break from that developmental mold when it comes to his supporting characters. In Mikey's journey back to the top, he rekindles with a weed queen that sees her business as a safety net for her family. Lexi and her mother are both addicted to opiates due to her mother's medical condition and the distracting peace that the drugs bring from the painful world.

With these characters on the brink of society, Baker uses their situation to subtly explain the unforeseen popularity of Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election. Characters are often seen slumped at home in their couches with the television set to Fox News and its neverending coverage of the Republican candidate and his "mass appeal". Baker's illustration about the allure of Trump doesn't try to be a grand statement for America itself, which turns out to be a good thing as the message comes together cleaner than the hamfisted ones found in mainstream media.

But while Baker respects his supporting cast, his relationship with Mikey is more complicated. Mikey is the cinematic combination of Dirk Diggler and Howard Ratner. He's a person that you love that you hate and hate that you love. You find yourself intrinsically drawn to him because of his drive and charm. But as the film progresses and Mikey's grand plan comes closer into view, your attitude towards him starts to waver.

Much of that emotional response comes from Simon Rex's brilliant performance, whose most prominent role up until now has been a recurring supporting part in the "Scary Movie" franchise and some pornographic solo scenes in a series of straight-to-video gay porn releases. Almost as if he has lived the life of Mikey throughout stretches of his career, Rex seems to instinctively know how to play this type of sleazy charmer.

While it does contain perfect casting, "Red Rocket" is not a perfect movie as a whole. With a runtime of 124 minutes, the film contains enough material for a tighter 90-minute story. The middle hour is the victim of this bloatedness, with long stretches given for light material. Still, the overly fatty meat on this movie's bones does give Rex and the cast more than enough to chew on, resulting in an emotional rollercoaster that couldn't be replicated by bigger productions.

Slotting in nicely with Baker's filmography and that of distributor A24, "Red Rocket" is one hell of a ride from beginning to end. There may be some potholes along the way, but they're not enough to stop this film from reaching its satisfying destination.

I looked up Red Rocket on Urban Dictionary and hahaha isn't that an accurate movie title.

Man oh man Sean Baker, you are quite something. Just like Florida Project, this was a gorgeous and phenomenal movie.

Simon Rex was a force to be reckon with. There wasn't any moment where I was bored with the guy. The dialogues along with his incredible charisma propelled the pace of this movie to become exciting and a bit anxiety-filling. Even more, he made what already a great script more investing.

The cinematography again was out of this world. A poor neighborhood in Texas somehow looked like a dream world.

Again, Sean Baker used the bizarre colors, cute shapes, and isolated locations of the houses to suggest a fantastical and ambiguous interpretation of the story. I think for this part, Red Rocket had a slight edge over Florida Project because the ending in Red Rocket was smoother and made more sense.

Overall, an absolutely magnetic movie. 9.5/10.

Red Rocket continues Sean Baker's streak of deeply empathetic cinema, but instead of using his lens to capture the inner lives of the downtrodden and vulnerable, as he's done in his previous films, we are instead let into the mind of a con man and serial abuser.

Mikey Saber starts out like many a Sean Baker protagonist- likable and magnetic if a little rough around the edges. But where we would usually find over the course of the film that this magnetism is masking a deep sadness or complexity, we instead come to learn that Mikey Saber's charm masks something much more insidious. We, the audience, can only watch in horror as he drags a naive teenager into his schemes and leaves behind a slew of ruined lives in his wake. It's a challenging and often frustrating film, but like its wily protagonist, it was able to charm me and win me over, purely by the virtue of its chutzpah.

What a waste of time. The film totally collapses during the last thirty minutes.

Granted, it's a pretty grungy film. Nobody to like. I realize "that's" the point, but I finished it, and regretted the decision.

Basically, you should just watch "Boogie Nights." It addresses the porn industry so much more efficiently.

Simon Rex is good in the lead role. He deserves some good parts.

The ending is weird. I honestly have no idea, what actually happened.

The production is low-budget, and technically, handled well.

But overall, the whole thing feels really "empty." I was expecting more nuance.

A disappointment.

6/10 - Simon Rex proves that he is certainly an actor capable of drama films and someone to take seriously, but as the credits abruptly began to roll, I could not help but ponder what the meaning of the film was and why I spent over 2 hours investing in it.