Mikey (Simon Rex) first appears striding down a road in utterly wrecked jeans and shirt. He is carrying nothing and seems to be going nowhere until he walks up the pathway to the house of the wife he abandoned and her venomously disapproving, chain-smoking mother.
Sean Baker’s Red Rocket is a movie set in Texas City in Galveston County. It’s basically an oil town and almost all the action in this film takes place on the perimeter of a vast refinery. Everything is very grainy, especially the dark interiors. This is because the film is shot on 16mm film, a medium which, on the big screen, produces a lively, speckled blur.
After several attempts, Mikey charms his way back into his home. He has been in Los Angeles, apparently making a vast number of award-winning porn films. His one career asset is his mighty todger, an ever-ready prop thanks to the blue pills he swallows when the critical moment nears.
Beneath the farcical surface, this is yet another example of the new American noir style
Something terrible has happened in LA that has left him with nothing.
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