Fantasia Fest 2024: Rats! Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

One of the great pleasures of attending a film festival in any part of the world and not knowing what movies you’re about to see, is their ability to be the experience that blindsides you in the best possible ways. It also helps that many times, you have no prior knowledge about the movie going in, so everything is fresh and new and a total surprise. Such is the case with Carl Fry and Maxwell Nalevansky’s Rats!, which recently screened at the Fantasia Film Festival, and is one of the most bizarre and yet satisfying watches of this year’s roster.

In 2007, Raphael (Luke Wilcox, in his acting debut) is a 19-year-old kid who gets busted for spray painting graffiti around the city of Pfresno, Texas (yes, spelled with a P), particularly on a phone booth that is designated to be a “city landmark”, despite already being extremely rundown and covered in graffiti from before. When released on bail and assigned to 50 hours of community service, however, Officer Williams (an incredibly insane Danielle Evon Ploeger) offers him a way to absolve himself, by infiltrating his cousin Mateo’s (Darius Autry) house and ratting on him, as he is suspected to be dealing in drugs and also supplying plutonium weapons to terrorists that could destroy the world.

What follows is nothing short of ridiculous, from meeting Mateo’s “roommate” Nestor (Marc Livingood) to an insane community service session to Flophouse (Ka5sh), an up-and-coming rapper who sings about selling crack and building his fanbase, to Shay Burrata (Ariel Ash), a women trying to become a news anchor in the most bizarre ways, and also a sting operation being conducted by the FBI to catch a murderer who severs the hands of their victims. Somehow, all of this ties to Raphael’s story, and almost seamlessly so, while never losing sight of its goals and its narrative tone. Fry and Nalevansky understand the material is over-the-top and may not necessarily work for everyone in the audience, but their confidence is a testament to what a creative mind can accomplish.

Without giving away any details, everyone in Pfresno is one second away from completely losing it, but despite this, there is an earnestness to how it is depicted, and adds to why Rats! works as well as it does, even when it is at its most weird, disgusting, raunchy and offensive. Rats! silver bullet–among a few in its arsenal–is its throwback to the 2000’s. The film feels as if it was pulled right out of that bygone era when they looked and sounded a certain way, color corrected to that time and even with a blaring soundtrack full of alternative rock and hip-hop music that would fit right in with any high school movie of then. While it may ride the line of being considered pastiche from a distance, Fry and Nalevansky know better, and depict the world of 2007 as a character in itself, transforming it more into a love letter to that time, and providing a nostalgic experience to audiences.

What further makes it so special is its cast, which knows how to approach the material and give it some heart. For all the ways Officer Williams breaks down how scheming and evil Mateo may be, the relationship that builds between him and Raphael is incredibly heartwarming, having the audience instantly root for them to make it out of these situations. As the movie progresses, Williams descends into madness further and further, while Mateo and his band of misfit friends seem better to be around. Raphael starts out rebellious and wanting nothing to do with anyone, though finds his footing thanks to his cousin as well as Bernadette (Khali McDuff-Sykes), a girl he meets during community service and falls for almost immediately. In his debut performance, Wilcox is excellent in capturing the bewildered and quieter nature of Raphael, which unravels as the movie progresses to hilarious degree, while Ploeger steals the entire thing out from under everyone with her unhinged, disgustingly profane performance as Williams. It’s astonishing how much she gets away with both physically and verbally, despite the movie calling her out on those every chance it gets. 

There is a chance Rats! may not work for everyone. It does not hold back in any regard and for those who may be easily made squeamish, it lets loose from its earliest minutes till its final one. For those willing to take the ride, however, it leads to one of the biggest surprises of the festival circuit, and one that remains hilarious to the end.

*still courtesy of Yellow Veil Pictures*

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Shaurya Chawla