Leondria gives Mikey $200 and tells him to never return to Texas City. He barely manages to escape and runs naked through the neighborhood. Leondria's daughter, June ( Brittney Rodriguez), and her brothers show up at Lexi’s house to threaten Mikey. Mikey has been selling marijuana for Leonadria, and Lexi tells her to take back the $3,000 that he had earned while dealing for her. She contacts Mikey’s old acquaintance Leondria ( Judy Hill). After telling Lexi, who he started sleeping with again, his ex-wife is furious. VERDICT – 1.Mikey’s big plan is to bring Strawberry to Los Angeles with him and help launch her career in porn. But it could leave some questioning the filmmaker’s. And while doing so, it may let us in on the lead character’s repulsive mindset. So we’re left a movie that’s biggest goal seems to be to push the envelope. It’s tempting to commend the movie’s representation of Southern poverty, but even that’s handled with a sliver of condescension. There’s really nothing to take away from Baker’s film. That may sound like a prickly and abrasive take-down of the movie but don’t worry, “Red Rocket” lives down to that impression. Instead it burrows deeper into the muck, seemingly enjoying itself, hiding behind the veil of “art”, and giving us nothing of value to chew on. It would be different if the film had something meaningful to say or to tackle. It’s when Mikey meets the latter that the film descends to the deepest depths of the gutter. Whether it’s his wife(ish) and her mother, or an easily impressed neighbor named Lonnie (Ethan Darbone), or 17-year-old Strawberry (Suzanna Son) who works part time at a donut shop. So he turns to selling weed for a old acquaintance and local drug dealer named Leondria (Judy Hill).Ī big chunk of the movie follows this disgraced slug of a man as he cons nearly everyone he meets for his own selfish gain. But he’s turned down whenever his work history comes up. To his credit, he tries to get a legitimate job. He wants to go back, but it’ll take some cash. We learn he’s back in Texas City after being ran out of Los Angeles where he worked in the porn industry. The problem with Mikey is that he’ll never be up on his feet. But we quickly see his snake oil salesman side and soon he’s convinced his ex to let him stay until he’s up on his feet. Mikey desperately needs a place to crash for a couple of days, but neither Lexi or her mother want anything to do with him (lots of old baggage comes to light later). He walks to a low income neighborhood, stopping at the house of his estranged wife Lexi (Bree Elrod) who lives with her mother Lil (Brenda Deiss). His body is bruised from head to toe and he has nothing with him except the clothes on his back. We first meet Mikey as he’s hopping off a bus in Texas City. But I could never muster anything other than utter disdain for the guy, and the longer he stayed on screen the more I wanted the movie to be over. I’m guessing Baker was trying to strike some kind of balance in our reactions to the character. Instead you can see him working hard to make Mikey come across as charming. But he doesn’t exactly wrestle with it either. Sean Baker (who serves as director, co-writer, co-producer, and editor) certainly doesn’t put his stamp of approval on Mikey’s behavior.
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