Steve Miller

10/10: The Rat Thing
Starring: Kevin Keresey, Michael McGee, Chairmaine Cruz, and Holly Fluger
Director: Kevin Keresey

Jack (Keresey) and Joey (McGee) are a pair of lifelong buddies who are struggling to make ends meet in a string of dead-end jobs. When Jack's girlfriend Irene (Cruz) becomes pregnant, he decides he needs to get his hands on some serious money and concocts a scheme to fake Joey getting bit by a rat at a local supermarket, have Joey sue them for millions of dollars, and then the pair of them split the money. However, as Jack starts getting all the pieces into place to execute his brilliant scheme, he finds himself facing an unexpected challenge even more insurmountable than the fact Joey is as dumb as a post... a soft spot in his own heart.

"The Rat Thing" is one of those films that demonstrates that you don't need hundreds of millions of dollars to make a great comedy, and that many of the best movies these days aren't on the big screen or even on cable, They are found at film festivals like STIFF and in the direct-to-DVD distribution channels... although if there are any film distributors or cable TV network programming buyers with even a tiny amount of good taste, they'll meet whatever producer/director/writer/co-star Kevin Keresey is asking for the rights because it is that good. It's a film that deserves to be seen by an audience far larger than any film festival can offer.

This is a well-written and well acted film that is further augmented by great cinematography and an excellent use of soundtrack music and sound in general. It's also possessed with a unique style that causes it to be a thoroughly modern comedy that nonetheless transmits a classic vibe. It's a film firmly rooted in the modern day, with modern characters struggling in dead-end low-paying service jobs who come up with a modern scheme to enrich themselves in the law suit lottery that passes for the civil court system in the United States, but the crispness of the dialogue delivered by the two lead characters and the rapid-fire nature of their patter--not to mention their natures and relationships--give the film an air of the best Abbott & Costello movies. (The fact the film is populated entirely by hard luck characters that we are alternatively laughing with and laughing at also serves to strengthen the film's classic feel.)

A few weeks back, in a review of Woody Allen's "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" I said that there was no one making movies or acting in them who could capture the style of a comedy from the 1930s or1940s, but Kevin Keresey has proved me wrong. With an appropriate budget and the same cast and crew who worked with him on "The Rat Thing", I don't doubt for a second that he'd produce a move that Woody Allen and George Clooney wish they could have accomplished.

Much of what makes this movie so great starts with its finely honed script; Keresey plainly understands one of the prime rules of low-budget, auteur-style filmmaking: There's never any excuse for not having a brilliant, perfectly polished script. A good deal of the film's most charming humor (and even a suspense element) arises from the way Jack’s development of Jack unknowingly sets up a situation that is certain to cause his "Rat Thing" to fail. His plan turns on killing the rat that supposedly bites Joey, but he starts treating it like a pet and even names it. Jack may be a bit of a hard case, but he couldn't possibly bring himself to kill the cute little Rizzo with whom he shares his sandwiches, can he? But if he can't, how will they get their millions? (This problem that Jack creates for himself is something the audience is aware of well before he is, and it's one of the many story elements that give the characters in this film a sense of realism, even if they get extremely silly at times.

"The Rat Thing" is a movie for everyone who enjoys smart, well-crafted comedies. Whether your taste runs in those that are socially relevant to the modern day, or if your tastes run more toward films from a time when everything was in black and white and men wore hats.

For more information on this spectacular movie, visit the official website, http://www.theratthing.com.