Rats, film review: Morgan Spurlock lays down the law on vermin

This crude but crafty documentary is not one to watch while eating, says Charlotte O'Sullivan
1/5
Charlotte O'Sullivan16 December 2016

“There are many ways to eat rat.”

A Vietnamese chef says this halfway through Morgan Spurlock’s crude but crafty documentary, which encourages us to be repulsed by the ever-multiplying predators (we could be watching a horror movie) before showing that our fear and loathing is a key part of the problem.

The film starts in New York but really gets going in New Orleans, where scientists explain how genuinely hazardous rat faeces/urine can be, digging out the deadly parasites that live inside a healthy rat. Try not to have food in your mouth as a roly-poly, pulsating grub is extracted (I’m one of those reviewers who likes to nibble while they scribble but I made an exception for this movie).

A US reviewer recently suggested that Spurlock, while stuffing himself with Big Macs for his breakthrough work, 2004’s Super Size Me, no doubt ingested “a fair amount of rat droppings”. Whatever your views on the quality control enforced by fast-food venues, Spurlock’s interest in low-cost food is illuminating. If rats live on rice (as they do in Cambodia), they’re a healthy option. Cheap doesn’t have to be nasty.

We watch Brits setting their dogs on rats. And Hindus, in an Indian temple, honouring them. Spurlock doesn’t give any one group the thumbs-up but it seems obvious who has the right idea. Apologies to any vegetarian readers, but where rats are concerned the case is clear. Since we can’t beat ’em, we’ve got to eat ’em.

Cert (-), 84 Mins

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