Washed up porn star Mikey Sabre (Simon Rex) arrives by bus back in his hometown of Texas City, Texas. He’s beat up and sans belongings, bruised from some unseen brawl but still so motormouthed you’d think he were riding high on the Colombian marching powder. But Mikey doesn’t have the kind of money to fund such a habit. In fact, he has no money to his name. Which is why he’s in Texas City, Texas. Mikey hasn’t quite come crawling back to his estranged meth-head wife Lexi (Bree Elrod) to rekindle their extinguished flame but he does need to crash on her couch for a bit while he gets his affairs in order. If she’ll let him.

When none of the local dives will give Mikey even the lowliest of service jobs, he turns to flipping bags of weed at the Donut Hole. There, he meets 17-year old cashier Strawberry (Suzanna Son), whose personality perfectly matches her name. As if she’s going to be snatched up by the next person to lay eyes on her, Mikey immediately swirls Strawberry into his orbit. His temptation is two-fold. On the one front, Mikey wants to do what he’s best known for with the high-school junior (a fact made ever-so-slightly less appalling by the fact that apparently the legal age of consent in Texas is 17). But Strawberry is more than just the apple of his horniness.

In Mikey’s fantasies, she’s also a meal ticket in the making. A juicy piece of potential who Mikey hopes to mold into the world’s newly-minted #1 porn star. An obvious ploy to backdoor his way back into an industry that already spat him back to his hometown. The only thing that stands in his way is, well, everything. Including the audience’s judgement. If it feels like everything might go south at any moment, that’s because Mikey is basically holding a hot potato for the entirety of the film. And yet, for basically a predator, he’s floats through the world with a kind of care free attitude that only true stupidity and utter naivety can buy you.

It should be obvious by now that Mikey isn’t a good guy. He’s a grade-A dirtbag. Set against the oil refineries of Texas, Red Rocket is a film about a r aw shamelessness and the rise of the American schmuck. Accordingly, it’s set during the run-up to the 2016 election, the first ever to pit a man against a woman wherein rampant chauvinism became a central component of the race. A suiting backdrop for a guy to justify having won an AVN award for receiving (not giving, mind you) oral. And, in one of many outrageously explicit moments, Mikey tells hapless bystanders precisely why he deserved that AVN in gory, graphic detail.

Simon Rex, who (unfortunately) you may recall from his roles throughout the back half of Scary Movie franchise or as a former MTV VJ rapper, whips up the role of a lifetime as Mikey, doing his damnest to justify his casting after ostensibly being put out to pasture by Hollywood writ large. I think it’s fair to say that Rex is a limited actor with a sketchy pedigree but no matter where his skillset lies outside of Red Rocket, he’s the perfect Mikey. Rex bleeds into Mikey. Mikey bleeds into Rex. I couldn’t imagine someone else playing this role quite like Rex does and would personally be glad to see the guy get some deserved accolades for his work here. Watching Mikey is like peering into the very soul of America, particularly as it gears up to vote Donald Trump into the Oval Office.

Mikey is a bonehead, yes. And a scumbag. But for 120 minutes, he’s our bonehead. Our scumbag. As a writer and director both, Sean Baker has this unmistakable talent for creating characters who are both utter despicable and oh-so-likable. Portraits of lovable American pieces of shit. Recall Halley from The Florida Project. A vagabond single mom without a shred of respect who won our sympathies despite her obvious shortcomings as a parent and person.

No one creates these portraits of our country men and women quite like Baker, who is becoming increasingly our clearest voice of living on the fringes of America. Or, in some people’s estimation, the “real America.” These are the places where Trump became president, who bought into the language of being forgotten or left behind. Mikey’s riding that selfsame wave of toxic male energy, just with smaller aspirations. He’s preying wherever he can be fed. As NSYNC’s pop super-hit “Bye Bye Bye” repeats throughout the movie, Baker nods back to the 90s and to glory days left far in the rearview.

CONCLUSION: A Texan ballad of a dirtbag ex-porn star, ‘Red Rocket’ is a sidesplittingly funny and brutally honest character study from writer-director Sean Baker. Its uncomfortable subject matter will be a turn-off for many but Baker’s unblinking commitment to fully unpacking this satirical saga of a guy who’s packing is amongst the best of the year.