The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Trump, an x-rated adult movie star and Les Dennis
Damon Smith reviews the latest new releases to watch in the cinema
RED ROCKET (18)
SET in the summer of 2016 a few months before the bad-tempered and divisive US presidential race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Red Rocket is a freewheeling comedy drama, which charts the awkward return of an adult entertainment film star to his no-nonsense Texas City roots.
Writer-director Sean Baker has a keen eye for the minutiae of everyday life on the fringes of American society, evidenced by his awardwinning films Tangerine and The Florida Project, which deservedly earned actor Willem Dafoe an Oscar nomination.
Working from a script co-written by Chris Bergoch, Baker immerses us again in sweat-sodden tableaux of enterprise and ingenuity in the face of financial hardship, anchored by a scintillating lead performance from Simon Rex. He is irresistible as the chatterbox opportunist with an x-rated past, who doesn’t always engage a brain full of get-rich-quick schemes before he opens his mouth and contradicts his impressive resume of 2,000 film credits and six AVNs (“It’s like the Academy Awards for what I do”).
Rex’s energy and crude charm are infectious, papering over cracks in a pedestrian plot that unnecessarily exceeds two hours and sags noticeably before the central character chokes on just deserts.
After more than 17 years biting the hand that feeds him in Los Angeles, washed-up porn actor Mikey “Saber” Davies (Rex) returns to his hometown, breaking a promise to never “step foot in Texas again”.
He crash-lands on the doorstep of estranged wife Lexi (Bree Elrod) and mother-in-law Lil (Brenda Deiss) and pleads loudly to sleep on their sofa until he can get back on his feet.
Lil foolishly agrees on the proviso that Mikey contributes at least 200 dollars a month in rent.
With a roof over his head, Mikey reconnects with neighbourhood drug dealer Leondria (Judy Hill) and offers to run weed for her “like back in the day”. Leondria’s hard-nosed daughter June (Brittney Rodriguez) expects him to smoke the product but Mikey proves her wrong and expands his customer base to include hard-hatted workmen who frequent a doughnut shop run by Ms Phan (Shih-Ching Tsou).
Her sole employee, 17-year-old
Raylee aka Strawberry (Suzanna
Son), takes Mikey’s breath away and he sets out to woo the teenager away from her boyfriend Nash (Parker Bigham) with more lies that stack up around him like a poorly constructed house of cards.
Opening with a full-blooded blast of boy band *NSYNC’s dancefloor bop “Bye Bye Bye”, Red Rocket traverses tricky narrative terrain with scenes of explicit sexual activity and wanton immorality on the part of Rex’s garrulous anti-hero.
The script doesn’t let Mikey down gently – transgressions have consequences – but the on-screen relationship between Rex and Son is more sweet than salty and no matter how low the hustler sinks, part of us roots for him to defy the overwhelming odds.
7.5/10
SIDESHOW (15)
Meddling in the spirit world has dire consequences when Les Dennis and Anthony Head star in a comedy of errors written and directed by Adam Aldroyd.
Washed-up psychic Pendrick (Dennis) performs under the stage name The All-Seeing Stupendo but his potty-mouthed shows seldom live up to the billing. Pendrick’s long-suffering manager Gerald (Anthony Head) tries to keep the naysayers at bay. After one inglorious performance, Pendrick heads home and is followed by audience members Dom (Nathan Clarke) and Eva (April Pearson), who break into the property and hold the owner hostage. The intruders are convinced that Pendrick is a fraud and are convinced he will be an easy target. However, Dom and Eva get far more than they bargained for because Pendrick claims to be a genuine master of the dark mystic arts.
GREAT FREEDOM (18)
6/10
A gay man is repeatedly incarcerated in the aftermath of the Second World War in Austrian writer-director Sebastian Meise’s award-winning drama, which is co-written by Thomas Reider. In 1945 as the conflict ends, Jewish concentration camp inmate Hans (Franz Rogowski) is transferred to another prison for violating Paragraph 175, which forbids men from acting on homosexual desires.
Unable to deny his true self, Hans repeatedly serves time and develops a strange bond to homophobic lifer Viktor (Georg Friedrich), who is also an outcast. By spending long stretches with Hans, Viktor gains a different perspective and the cellmates rely on each other to survive a dog-eat-dog world behind bars where any flicker of vulnerability or affection can be cruelly snuffed out.
Hans nurtures an attraction to young gay inmate Leo (Anton von Lucke) but cannot publicly declare his feelings. Consequently, the two inmates find ways to covertly telegraph their desires beneath the radar of guards and fellow prisoners.
MARIO PUZO’S THE GODFATHER CODA: THE DEATH OF MICHAEL CORLEONE (15)
Following the 50th anniversary re-release of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 masterpiece The Godfather and its sequel, the Oscar-winning trilogy concludes with a re-edited version of The Godfather: Part III featuring restored picture and sound.
As New York prepares to welcome the 1980s, ageing crime boss Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) is determined to find a successor to his sprawling empire.
He identifies fiery-tempered nephew Vincent (Andy Garcia) – the illegitimate son of his late brother Sonny – as an heir, who can help him achieve business legitimacy.
Unfortunately, Vincent’s volcanic temper is a liability and Michael faces tough decisions to protect his family, especially his favourite daughter Mary (Sofia Coppola), who is in love with Vincent.