Actor, rapper, comedian, and one-time porn performer Simon Rex gives an amusing performance in Red Rocket as a washed-up adult movie actor dealing with a career downturn.
Mikey’s career in LA has gone south, chiefly because he had regular work in the spoof sex franchise The Fast and Fury Ass – but as the porn version of the character played by Paul Walker, whose death put a catastrophic downer on Mikey’s career.
Rex appeared in a solo male pornographic film, giving a meta-layer quality to his work in Red Rocket.
Director Sean Baker makes his Cannes Film Festival debut with Red Rocket, which will be released in the US through A24, the home of another recent film about a fast-talking loser, Uncut Gems.
The film doesn’t boast big names but expect Rex, an actor, and former MTV VJ, to receive plenty of acclaim for a star-making role that could spark a career renaissance.
The reviews for the film have called it one of the best this season at Cannes.
Variety: “It would be hard to imagine A24 not launching a best actor campaign for Rex, who delivers a real, charismatic, gritty performance — which includes a scene where he runs, a la Forrest Gump, through the street, only he’s completely nude.”
The Hollywood Reporter: “Played by Simon Rex in a magnetic full-tilt performance of wired physicality and hyper-caffeinated loquacity, Mikey Saber, as he’s known professionally, is basically a charismatic douche, a user and a loser.”
Vanity Fair: “Rex’s performance is fleet and nimble, gregarious and shaded in darkness. He and Baker make staccato music together, as Mikey’s profile shifts from hangdog loser to something far more complicated.”
The Wrap: “Casting actors to play within a certain range has worked for Baker in the past and it does again here, with Rex (sorry) rising to the task (so very sorry), filling the part (so very, very sorry) with no small bit (somebody make this stop) of personal baggage (whew, it’s done.) Let’s say the role fits him like a, um, glove. Let’s say glove. “
