Images Courtesy of Yellow Veil Pictures
Counterculture is perhaps the most single most important
aspect of art, and most likely was one of the reasons that mankind decided to
create in the first place. Throughout the decades, cinematic rebels
have plied their thoughtful, wicked, and sometimes appalling trades to
communicate their frustrations with the societies around them to varying
degrees of success. Standing on the shoulders of John Waters, Jamie
Babbitt, and Harmony Korine, renegade filmmakers Maxwell Nalevansky and Carl
Fry's latest feature Rats! is an absolute triumph. Blending
crude humor and shocking violence to expose melancholy and uncertainty in late
2000's Texas, this is easily the best film of the year thus far.
Raphael is a young man with a penchant for graffiti that lands him in jail and is
given a choice: Inform on his cousin who may be selling nuclear weapons to
Osama Bin Laden or go to prison for defacing one of Pfresno, Texas' sacred
landmarks. What follows is a tale of serial murder, drugs, sex, and
strange pronunciations of the word "hands." Nalevansky and Fry's
script is audacious and outright hilarious. Luke Wilcox's heartfelt
performance is almost overshadowed by the rogue’s gallery that surrounds him,
particularly Danielle Evan Ploeger's insane, sexually inappropriate police
officer Williams. Her lunacy and complete surrender to the insanity of
the plot is perfection, the yield of which is laugh out loud moments of horror
and absurdity.
This is perhaps the greatest aspect of the film, there is an aura of fantasy that clings to every scene, as if the characters are trapped in a never-ending daydream that occasionally turns into a nightmare. This is emblematic of being an independent filmmaker. In the eye of the storm is Mateo (Raphael's good meaning, but flawed cousin,) Raphael, and Bernadette, his new friend from community service. There are moments of genuine emotion and tenderness dappled in between rat exterminations, amputations, and government conspiracy theories. This is a film that means to provoke, and while it does so, it is done in such a caring manner that one might forget to be offended.
Coming soon to theaters this Friday and debuting on
digital streaming March 11 via Yellow Veil pictures, Rats! is a fast and
fun exercise in nostalgic frivolity that pervaded the post Pulp Fiction
cinematic era. Both a loving homage to not only guerilla filmmaking, but
also the underground film scene of 1990's Austin, this is an expose of
madcap crime capers and a love letter to the outsiders who feel as if they
never truly have a place in polite society. This is Rats!’
greatest secret: Not only do the losers have a place, the rest of polite
society could more than likely learn a thing or two from them.
--Kyle Jonathan