Sean Baker is one of them most exciting directors of contemporary independent cinema. Since his breakthrough Tangerine LA he has been a regular at major festivals. After shaking up the Cannes Film Festival with his standout Florida Project in 2017, he returned there in 2021 with Red Rocket.
In April, the film finally made it into local cinemas. However, it has not turned into a crowd puller. Even though Red Rocket is one of the best movies of the year, it’s still going strong over seven months after its theatrical release absolute insider tip through. It is high time that this changed.
Sean Baker’s new masterpiece: Red Rocket is about an ex-porn star in two senses
Red Rocket tells about that Ex-pornstar Mikey Saber, played by Simon Rex. This is where things get exciting: before Rex became known in Hollywood through spoof films such as Superhero Movie and the Scary Movie series, he stood in front of the camera for various pornographic productions.
You can watch the trailer for Red Rocket here:
Red Rocket – Trailer (German subtitles) HD
However, Red Rocket is not a classic biopic. The story is fictitious. Nevertheless, Rex grabs his own experiences returns when he brings to life the unsuccessful Mikey, who returns to his bleak Texas homeland after multiple defeats in thriving Los Angeles.
His wife Lexi (Bree Elrod) and her mother Lil (Brenda Deiss) are waiting for him there – he doesn’t have a good relationship with either of them. But that doesn’t bother him. Mikey doesn’t want to stay too long anyway. When he meets young Strawberry (Suzanna Son), he smells his big comeback chance in the porn industry.
Mesmerizing Red Rocket protagonist: Simon Rex shines as Mikey Saber
Mikey is a terrible person, but that’s exactly why he’s a fascinating protagonist. Baker watches him intently as he tries in vain to get out of his predicament. Quite often Mikeys fails with his selfish intentions and makes other people pay for his mistakes.
©Universal
Simon Rex as Mikey Saber in Red Rocket
From this, Baker draws a funny, touching, but also sad milieu study, which is not only made up of idiosyncratic characters. The environment also plays a crucial role. With grainy footage Baker captures Texas’ monotonous industrial landscape and finds something vibrant in every image.
This fits perfectly with the main character: Mikey is a restless character, who never wants to rest, although that would do him good. Rex is brilliant in the role and above all expresses Mikey’s restlessness in a great way. You can’t turn away from him, Rex plays this incorrigible character so mesmerizingly.
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How did you like Red Rocket?