Ratas, ratones, rateros

A difficult film to watch, Rateros is a rewarding, harrowing, emotional roller coaster of a movie. Marcos Bustos is Salvador, a poor teenager in-and-out of minor trouble at military school, but overall likable. Enter his inappropriately named cousin, Angel, a man who can fall in a bed of roses and come out smelling like crap. Angel is a junky and immediately proceeds to ruin the lives of Salvador and anyone else he comes into contact with.

As Angel Carlos Valencia gives a once-in-a-lifetime performance that is so believable and anger-inducing I nearly wanted to reach into my television and strangle him myself. This is a slice of life from an impoverished and almost hopeless world. Though extremely poor, Salvador is straddling a place between two worlds as he teeters dangerously towards the wrong one. Although it's evident early on he would like to rid himself, tough guy Angel's cries to Salvador for help work in a revolting passive aggressive way that threatens violence at all times.

Inspiration and hope come from Salvador's understanding girlfriend, Mayra and another cousin the wealthy, sympathetic and beautifully bored, Carolina.

Silent witness to all and symbol of the film's grim realities sits the boy's shared grandma, wheelchair bound and comatose, more dead than alive and helpless to do more than just sit there.

A powerful, sad and thought provoking tale.

"Ratas, Ratones, Rateros" tells of a street punk who returns to his roots only to creates problems which reverberate throughout his family. A mediocre flick at best with poor production value and a story which is less than engaging and goes no where, "RRR" is difficult to recommend for other than those few foreign film freaks who salivate over anything with a subtitle. You don't get Cadillacs out of a Volkswagon factory so be prepared for a very poor quality film before getting involved with this apparently earnest effort out of Ecuador. (C-)

"Rodents" is a bit different from other movies about Latin American criminals and lowlife in that it shows the interconnections among classes. The sad protagonist, Salvador, is an aimless kid at the bottom edge of the lower middle class; one of his cousins is in the greedy, selfish, stupid bourgeoisie, and his other cousin, the sociopath Angel, is in the "underclass." Like Mario Vargas Llosa's stunning novel, Conversation in the Cathedral, "Rodents" is saying that these classes don't exist separately from each other--the degradation of life in many large cities throughout the world is a product of class interactions. The viewer feels sorry for Salvador, who like the middle class as a whole, is trapped between brutal street criminals and the disgusting rich, caught in a spiral of meaningless violence that he has absolutely no control over. Incidentally, I agree with Ecuadorian reviewers who say this movie is not representative of life in Quito; it's true enough that Ecuadorians have generally remained civil and non-violent, despite the horrible things that corrupt politicians and the IMF (and others)have done to their economy. However, the movie packs a punch and has a lot to say about life in many places beyond Ecuador. A must-see.

Sebastian Cordero is one of the great filmmakers of Latin America. Thanks to him, this is the first movie with several international awards such as: Best First Movie and Best Movie in The Latin America Cinema of Trieste, Italy (1999). Best Actor (Carlos Valencia) and Best First Movie in The Spanish American Film Festival of Huelva, Spain (1999). Best Editing Award in The Havana Festival (1999). A honorable mention in the Bogota Film Festival (2000). Thanks to Cordero, Ecuador is in the international spotlight. CRONICAS (Chronicles), his latest feature starring John Leguizamo, was showed at Cannes in the "Un certain regard" section with excellent reviews. Long live Ecuador! Viva el Ecuador!

rateros, is about a street level hoodlum in modern day quito, Ecuador. this moving cannonball of destruction, intersects with various people's lives, leaving mayhem and chaos in his aftermath. the guy seems to have gone on the wrong path due to personal misfortunes, like the death of his mother and is progressively getting worse. he is getting addicted to smoking cocoa, which is filmed with a gangsta cool, which is hard to beat, and almost makes me want to do the same things too. i can identify with this movie a lot, since i too was once on the wrong path like this. lying and using people came easily to me and it wasn't that i wanted to hurt them or do bad things, it was just the way the day spelled out for me.

rateros, is a lot like train spotting, the British movie about junkies. while it stays true to the emotions and reality of such a lifestyle, one could say that the protagonist is unusually lucky. such a lifestyle of drugs, using people and in this movies case, eventually progressing to killing people, can only be affected for the short term. people who live this way do not live long or live long outside of prisons.

the movie supports an ensemble cast of characters, who play their parts excellently, but angel is the centerpiece. the actor who plays him (Carlos Valencia) gave a virtual tour de force performance. he was very very good and believable down to the blackened nicotine stained lips and whinny insinuating way of street talking. the cinematography is also very good, giving a very good feel of the culture of the burgeoning metropolis, that is quito.

overall the movie is very good and another milestone in the tons of very good cinema coming out of south America, and one of the first which has put Ecuador on the map for me. i highly recommend that you watch it.