Red Rocket

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.

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.

Sean Baker is quickly rising to the top of my favourite directors list. His movies are so quiet and unassuming, yet they linger in my mind for days and days.

He tells stories about real people living in real America that resonate against fluffy films with forced morals and shiny stars who live in perfect houses.

Red Rocket tells the truth of a seedy character who is both charismatic (to those who are naive enough and needy enough to buy into him) and repugnant in his self-serving narcissism.

Not much happens in this film but I was not bored for a second of it. The characters are so well played and well conceived it is riveting.

Bravo Mr. Baker! Please keep making brilliant movies.

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 was mostly a psychological horror experience for me personally since I am a porn performer of 12 years and related to WAY TOO MUCH with main character Mikey Saber. For brief moments, I was wondering if Sean Baker had been lurking my career and was pulling details from it, but, realistically I know that's VERY unlikely. That aside, I am very confident that I'll never be on Mikey Saber's level (so low) otherwise.

Mikey Saber is a fully despicable lead character. This is definitely one of "those" movies. There aren't really ANY characters that are quite likable - each one only adds to the pileup of utter discomfort. To me, that's this film's primary strength - it is extremely discomforting and remains consistently throughout it's rather lengthy runtime (perhaps a little too long considering it is nearly plotless and there's really no conflict until the final leg of the film). Simon Rex does a great job with the character and definitely puts in the strongest performance in the movie. Everyone else is sufficient but not super memorable (well, ok, Suzanna Son is really memorable too).

The movie spends a lot of time focusing on Saber's efforts in "making it happen" with an underage girl. Things go further than I expected and it certainly adds to the discomfort and the "cringe value" of the movie, which I can only imagine is what Baker wanted to make people feel. I am about 100% sure this element of the movie will rub a lot of people the wrong way, and may cause some "controversy" or general distaste towards the movie.

The movie is not immensely funny but it does have plenty of legitimately comedic moments sprinkled throughout. I had my chuckles here and there, but out of the entire row of people sitting behind me, I don't think I heard a single one of them make a peep once - that in itself was kind of disturbing.

It definitely seems like Sean Baker either did his research or simply has always been paying attention to the porn industry. I did enjoy all the legit name drops and industry references. "Remember the time Kristina Rose almost broke it off?" In the end, the movie really made me just wonder what made Sean Baker feel inspired to tell THIS story specifically. It does kind of feel like a pretty odd way to follow up The Florida Project, which seemed to have so much heart in it - it was so endearing. This one mostly feels seedy through and through. I didn't really find that it had much that would ever make someone want to watch it more than once, nor did I find much of a message in it, but I did like it for its commitment to being exactly what it is - and that's a daring, trashy, absolutely cringe-inducing movie that makes straight male pornstars seem like the scum of the earth.