Directing: B+
Acting: B-
Writing: A-
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B+

Sean Baker is a curiously unique director, but at least he’s consistent: his previous two feature films, Tangerine (2015) and The Florida Project (2017), are beautifully shot with noticeably and obviously nonprofessional actors, yet written well enough to transcend any seeming lack of polish. His stories are each quite different from each other, and thus comes along Red Rocket, evidently keeping the traditions of his productions alive. This one is shot on a shoestring budget of barely more than $1 million, in and around Texas City, Texas.

Baker even manages a clever conceit with this one, tying the run down environment of Texas City to the glamor (and seediness) of Southern California without ever taking the production out of Texas. In this case, the constant references to Los Angeles are tied to the porn industry, as the protagonist, Mikey (Simon Rex, the only even remotely recognizable professional actor in the cast), has been in the industry twenty years but is now returning to his home town. We never do find out why, only that he’s broke and beaten up. Eventually it becomes clear that the “why” there hardly matters; it only fits in with the direction Mikey has always taken his life.

It’s interesting to see a movie largely about the porn industry, but focused on a straight male porn actor, and how he is affected by his experience with it. I’d be interested in getting more perspectives on how Red Rocket’s script characterizes the porn industry, and this particular porn actor. This movie doesn’t seem especially interested in looking upon the industry with judgment, but one might wonder if we are to understand that porn work turned Mikey into the objectively awful person he is today. I don’t really think so, though. It feels very much like Mikey is just an innate asshole who happened to get into the porn business.

There is one exchange of dialogue I really liked about it, as it had a kind of subversively feminist subtext to it. Mikey spends a lot of time bragging about his supposed accomplishments in the porn industry, including AVN (“Adult Video News”) Awards such as “Best Oral.” A young woman Mikey is pursuing learns that the only reason he has this award is because the woman who performed the oral sex shares the award with all of the men on whom she did it, and she asks the obvious question: why do any of the men get awards for that? Well, because porn—particularly straight porn—has deeply misogynistic cultural overtones, I guess.

It’s not often a movie about such a terrible person is this entertaining, but Red Rocket, and particularly actor Simon Rex, pulls off something truly rare: Mikey is hard to resist, even as he’s actively screwing over every single person in his life, because even as a 46-year-old man he’s incredibly fit, good looking, and most crucially, charming. This guy has charisma to spare, and Rex, an actor thus far best known for, not even the original, but three of the Scary Movie sequels, is perfectly cast in the role. It’s too bad that this movie did not get more attention from general audiences, because critically speaking, Red Rocket is the role of his career.

Red Rocket, in fact, is another victim of bad timing, largely thanks to the pandemic. It was shot during Covid with strict on-set protocols in the fall of 2020, and then got a limited theatrical release in December 2021—just in time for the Omicron variant wave. This movie did play in theaters briefly in my local market (Seattle), but like many others I avoided movie theaters through at least the month of January, thus missing the window. Only just recently has its online VOD price gone down to the reasonable price of $4.99, which is why I’m reviewing it now.

And, I have to admit, in Red Rocket’s opening scenes, I actually found myself wondering what all the buzz had been about. The supporting actors being non-professional is quite obvious, with line deliveries that feel deeply unrehearsed, particularly when Mikey first shows up at the house of his estranged wife and mother-in-law (the recently passed Brenda Deiss). But, I don’t know if the film was shot in sequence or what, but as the movie goes on, that element steadily fades away, until the gorgeous cinematography, polished writing, and eventually adequate acting makes the movie just as compelling as it could ask for. Plus there’s a great scene with Simon Rex running through town in the night completely nude, full frontal, so I’ve got no complaints there.

Side note: another fun element of this movie is that, although there is both male and female nudity, only this scene with a nude man is gratuitous or borderline exploitative, which feels knowingly deliberate. A separate scene in which Suzanna Son is topless but singing at a keyboard comes across as comparatively wholesome, her incredible singing voice the only thing you find yourself really paying attention to.

There are also uncomfortable elements of the plotting in Red Rocket, not least of which is Mikey’s manipulation of the much younger, 17-year-old Strawberry (Suzanna Son), nudging her progressively toward the idea of working in porn herself. After some time, you realize that what he’s doing is grooming her. But, rest assured, Red Rocket is not quite as sinister as it might sometimes make you fear; the way the plot veers at the end is both funny and satisfying, albeit with a remaining subtext of sadness. Mikey is a guy who has no real self-awareness and can’t see the inevitability of his destiny as a fuckup, which is a surprisingly fun way for us to go on his journey with him.

*It gets better for us, while it gets worse for him.*

Overall: B+