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[Short Reviews]

RAT

Hubert Flynn (Pete Postlethwaite) leads a boring life. He lives in a humdrum Dublin suburb with a harridan wife, a pious son, and an intensely loyal daughter. He delivers bread. He drinks his pint. One day he leaves the pub feeling not quite right.

Hubert awakens the next morning to discover that, well, he’s a rat. A bizarre occurrence, to be sure. But his family set about handling their affliction with plucky resolve. They take him to the bookie’s. They swing him by the pub, where he downs a pint. ( " Ah, he was fond of his pint, " says the publican. " Mind you, he was never heavy into it. Seven or eight an evening would do it. " ) Before long, however, darker forces conspire against Hubert. Thanks to the heroic efforts of an exorcising priest, things a take a turn for the better in the nick time.

Unlike Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Steve Barron’s film is explosively funny, marked by a Dublin brand of humor (think The Commitments). It’s a character-driven comedy that boasts some doozies: the smarmy, conspiratorial journalist who promises that the Flynns will make a mint on his ghostwritten book; the shrewish wife; the devilish, soon-to-be-priest son; the oracular, Guinness-quaffing Uncle Matt; and, yes, the title rodent, who though mute has unmistakable star quality.

BY MIKE MILIARD

Issue Date: April 26-May 3, 2001





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