 When a down-on-his-luck porn star heads back to his old town in Texas, all hell breaks loose in Red Rocket. No, this film isn't loosely based on the sick act of Eric Cartman in an episode of South Park where he jerks off a dog and yells, Red Rocket. Red Rocket. Come on, dog. Red Rocket. It's its own thing, and we're going to talk about it right now. But why? Why, Adam, are you talking about this movie out of nowhere? Well, it's because I have a Patreon account at AdamDoesMovies where you can become a member. And one of those tiers is Mithril. For $30 a month, you can not only make me watch a movie and review it, but I have to give you a shout-out on top, even if the film's terrible. So shout-out to Nada for picking this week's video, and I look forward to all the torture he will provide me in the future, because he likes artsy stuff. Truth be told, I'm a very meat and potatoes guy. Even when it comes to my movies, do I like some of the artsy-fartsy stuff? Sure, from time to time, it tickles my fancy. A24 scares me most of the time. It could go either way. I'll either love it or I'll hate it. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground with it. I actually know this guy, Nada, pretty well. He runs my Discord channel at AdamDoesMovies, and he's got some very specific taste. And not necessarily taste that aligns with mine. We do, however, see eye to eye on occasion, and thankfully, I can say, Red Rock, it's one of those times. Here's the basic premise. Mikey's a down-and-is-luck porn star who can't make ends meet anymore, so he's forced to move back to butt-fucked Texas or some small rinky-dink town in the middle of nowhere where he has to kinda confront some of his demons, some of his past. And what demons would those be? I don't know, maybe it's the fact that he's been married for multiple years and he's yet to get that taken care of, or it's the fact that he's abandoned everyone he knew at one point in time and potentially even loved or called a friend. It's hard to know because the guy's a jackass narcissist who only really cares about himself at the end of the day. He's a challenging character because he's very charismatic. He's very outspoken, he's very outgoing. And that's pretty clever what the director did by tying this into a political theme because this film takes place during the election of 2016. So we see giant Trump billboards and Trump on TV and Trump all over the place throughout this movie definitely taking a political stance. I try to keep politics off my channel and just talk about movies and light fun things. So again, a nice fictitious tip of the hat to Nada. Then again, five people will watch this review so I guess I'm not that concerned about scorching earth. This film is written and directed by Sean Baker. I always over pronounce my T's because I can't pronounce them well. It's just unnatural to me. It's two hours and 10 minutes. I like my movies under two hours unless they have something really compelling to say. Thankfully, this movie is very layered. And not just because it has a fantastic nuanced performance by Simon Rex as Mikey, but everything in the production even screams, look at me closer. The film has a gorilla style to it. It has a homemade feel. It wants you to get in close with these characters, really take you into their world, which honestly sucks ass. I watched this movie with my wife and normally she's not really into the artsy stuff. She's not really into the subtleties and cinematic conversation, if you will. She loves Maverick, loves Maverick. I mean, who doesn't? It's a great movie, but it's a simple movie. Red Rock, it's not a simple movie. It takes simple ideas and runs with them in different directions, asking you to grab on to anything you can. The ending? Oh, you better believe it's up in the air as to what happens. We'll get into that later on. But for now, I will just say this. If you're looking for a film that is a little different, it has some nice dark humor. It actually gets funnier the more you think about and get to know these characters and begs that you look a little deeper into the commentary going on. Red Rock, it's for you. If, however, the Maverick was your favorite movie of 2022, you're probably not gonna like this one very much. I'm not gonna lie, the first 30 minutes was tough for me. I was worried, especially when the film style was a little bit like obnoxious at points. We have solid stock camera shots that last for like four minutes. I'm being dramatic. But there's at least minute camera shots at a really bad angle. And I'm just saying, like, this is the worst angle a director could choose to shoot this. So it's clearly intentionally done to be bad, which is just another layer to the film. The thing is shot on 10 millimeter, I believe. It has an old school look to it, but it's supposed to be modern as far as the time period. It almost has a porn style to it. Again, he knows what he's doing. When you first meet Mikey, you're thinking, all right, this guy's kind of a piece of shit, but I feel bad for him. He's trying, I guess, to make things work with his estranged wife and her mother by moving in with them, helping pay the bills. Mo the lawn provides security as he puts it because it's a very, it's a very important area and they're very important people. He has to protect at all costs. Sarcasm aside, as the movie continues to go on, you realize, oh, this guy really sucks and he ruins every life he comes across and then we jump to a Trump ad. And then back to Mikey, it's so, it's so subliminal, isn't it? It's very subtle with its approach. I guess I'm gonna dip my dick into the spoilers now. This is a rated R movie. It's about porn. I can be a little crass, I think. I recommend you watch Red Rocket for all the reasons I gave. If you don't want to, you don't care. We'll jump into spoilers now. Mikey's a piece of shit. He's the protagonist, but he's also the antagonist of this film. Every life he comes across, he makes worse. His wife's on drugs, but I believe she's on the mend or at least trying. She's trying to mend. She's half-mended. He moves in, starts bringing in cash, helping the family out. She wants to make it work with him, but he has other plans. You see, he doesn't care about any of these people. He only cares about Mikey. And his goal is to get back into the industry as he breaks multiple times over. He's like an Adonis. He's a God. He has multiple adult Academy Awards. I can't remember the names. I'm not that familiar with the industry. I celebrate it. I've definitely watched my share of Bang Bus back in the day, but we grow up a little bit. We grow up a tiny bit. Mikey hasn't, though. He wants the spotlight. He wants the limelight. And good news for him. 17, a.k.a. Jailbait, is legal in Texas. And he happens across a tasty little nugget at the donut shop. A tasty little strawberry, if you will. If you haven't seen the movie, that means nothing to you. But that's the name of this girl. Not her real name, but the name she likes to go by. And it just so happens to work perfect in the porn industry, for what reasons I can't even possibly understand. He's gonna spend a good amount to this movie grooming this poor girl, who sadly is incredibly talented. We find out later in the picture when she plays the piano and sings beautifully. It's tragic, because he's laying there in the bed watching her, and he just doesn't give a shit about her skill. He's only interested in himself and how he can further his career. And if he has to step on her in the process to get there, so be it. A great example of why Mikey sucks so bad is he has a buddy, not really a buddy, an acquaintance that he uses as a chauffeur to drive him around the town, do whatever he needs to do to get away. And at one point, easily the craziest part of this film, Mikey's at the top of his game. Everything is working out. He's selling drugs and making tons of money by not listening to the drug provider and selling to people he's not supposed to. He has a meal ticket with Strawberry, who he has successfully gotten to do a lot of unspeakable acts to him, and now she's all in. I'm moving away, going to California, and becoming a star. As he's almost at the peak, the crescendo of his life's work, ready to start a new chapter, bam, his buddy, who he yells to pull off, cuts across a busy highway, causing a massive pile up, injuring dozens of people, possibly even killing some. I don't believe they do, but some of them are in critical condition. Short for condition. So how does poor Mikey respond to this situation? Well, of course, he tells his buddy to flee the crime. They then pull over and he chews him out, saying, I can't be put on the hook for this. In fact, I wasn't even here. You don't even know me, dude. You take the fall. And because his friend's so impressionable, so naive, so hillbilly-ish, he believes him. He wants to impress Mikey because Mikey's a star. He's got a place in Cali. He's got 60,000 subscribers on Pornhub. He has hundreds of thousands of views. He has awards. This guy wouldn't lie to him. He's a businessman. He's a self-made millionaire who has hotels and steaks and water and all sorts of stuff. It goes back to that whole layered thing, right? But because Mikey is so charismatic to a certain group of individuals, they take the knives for him. They take the gunshots. They fall on the sword that was meant for him and he gets away. But eventually, Mikey pisses off one too many people. There's no one left to be in his corner and when this film winds down, everything is taken. He turned his back on his drug boss. He turned his back on his wife and mother-in-law and he turned his back on the town that he grew up in. And it has a brilliant ending where we see Mikey running buck naked through the streets with Bye Bye Bye by In Sync Plain, a song that runs rampage throughout this movie, which I appreciate. I love a good In Sync song where he finally ends up where he started. And he's once again come full circle. Now it's Strawberry's mom's house instead of his wife's where he can try to worm his way into their affairs and ruin their lives as well. What a guy. Of course, in Mikey's twisted fucked up eyes, he sees her come to the door in a swimsuit dancing seductively for him. Because it's all about Mikey at the end of the day. Did he even make it to the house? Unlikely, but it doesn't really matter because he's gonna be repeating the same cycle over and over and over spinning his wheels on his red rocket until he's inevitably no more. Have you seen Red Rocket? Are you more inclined to watch it now? Let me know in the comments below. Like the video if you had a good time. Subscribe if you haven't. I post tons of movie related content each and every week. We'd love to have you stick around. Take care. Hey, thanks again for watching the video. If you want, you can check me out on Patreon at patreon.com slash Adam Does Movies and become a member there. I'm also on YouTube Join. 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