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| Ratas, Ratones Rateros | 
 enlarge | Director: Sebastian Cordero
Actors: Simon Brauer, Marco Bustos, Cristina Davila, Fabricio Lalama, Irina Lopez
Studio: Vanguard Cinema
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.95
Buy New: $7.99
You Save: $11.96 (60%)
Buy New/Used from $6.84
Avg. Customer Rating:  (12 reviews)
Sales Rank: 85371
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Ntsc
Language: Spanish (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 107 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.4 x 0.5
MPN: DVF0116D
UPC: 658769011630
EAN: 0658769011630
ASIN: B000059XUE
Release Date: April 17, 2001
Theatrical Release Date: 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...
 Life On The Mean Streets Of Ecuador March 10, 2007
Salvador is a rebellious teen-ager who engages in petty crime with his two best friends and has a rocky relationship with his father. But his life soon goes much further downhill when his cousin Angel arrives. Angel is a drug addict involved in all sorts of more serious criminal activities. He is currently trying to hide from some loan sharks who are out to get him for non-payment of a debt. Soon Angel has Salvador and his friends wrapped in all sorts of trouble, while Salvador's father ends up dying from wounds inflicted by the loan sharks looking for Angel. Eventually, Angel kills Salvador's uncle, while robbing his house, and then takes off out of town - leaving Salvador with nothing.
My wife is originally from Manta, Ecuador and we go there often to visit her family members still in the country. I have been to both Quito and Guayaquil several times and I think this movie does an excellent job of capturing certain aspects of Ecuadorian life. For example, the movie depicts the simmering class tensions between Salvador's poverty stricken side of the family and his rich uncle's family who tend to be arrogant and flaunt their wealth. But it also shows the closeness of family ties in Ecuador and how Salvador is unwilling to force his cousin Angel to leave even after all the problems he causes. The budding, uncertain romantic feelings between Salvador and his amiga Mayra are also shown in a way that seems realistic and true to life in the emotional world of teen-agers. Really this is a movie I liked in almost every aspect. It is intelligent and artistic but without a bunch of phony pretensioness. It's also fast paced and entertaining, the sort of movie that can be enjoyed purely for it's action and excitement.
This is my first viewing of a movie made in Ecuador by an Ecuadorian director. But it definitely won't be my last. It's great to seen Latin America realistically portrayed by Latinos rather than the sort of mindnumbing stereotypes that Hollywood churns out. Go see this movie!
 Difficult Slice of Ecuadorian Life November 29, 2004
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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 likeable. 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.
insight on life in that kind of Ecuador July 21, 2003
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I agree, it's an interesting perspective on a situation that many are aware about in Ecuador. The movie was a bit too long for the plot. Then it ends abrubtly! I think the whole point to this film is to show that the situation has no easy or quick solution. This is proved by the many trials and situations Angel and Salvador get themselves into. It seems that Salvador still young, at the end has grown and has become smarter from the beginning of the film, but Angel simply has a long way to go before he learns. The violence is not gory or graphic, it is smartly and subtley displayed. It seemed like the action just kept going on and on, it was at sometimes annoying, because the plot was not going anywhere. It is an interesting take on the situation in Ecuador and is not a bad film at all, just seems like the point of the film could have been summed up quicker. This movie is like Y Tu Mama tambien, but without the ending that brings it all together.
A haunting glimpse of the underbelly of Ecuador. October 1, 2002
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
Since books were written and traveler's tales recorded, highland Ecuador has had the reputation of being the safe haven of the Andes, a gentle law abiding country that has always been bordered by the thug societies of Colombia to the north, and the oppressive military stronghold of Peru to the south. Times have changed. The roads that once barely made it from Guayaquil to Quito or from Tulcan ,on the Colombian border, to the heart of Quito are now highways that have brought world culture and chaos to this formerly placid country. My memories of innocence and lack of crime in the Quito of the early 70's became so tarnished and changed with my last few recent trips to the capital. This movie embellished my fears and distrust of the seething underbelly of the new Quito. In the movie, the scene that aroused so many memories was the glimpse of the Cumanda bus station, where one of the "rateros" slowly walks up to the sleeping gringo and steals, with a knife, his waist pack. I heard so many times on my last trip to Quito from everyone from taxi drivers to relatives of my fiancee, who was born and raised in Quito, "Times have changed..Be careful". The summer of 2001, we boarded a bus in Quito at the Cumanda Terminal and were met after a short time by a "gentleman" who explained to us on the bus that he had been recently released from prison for robbing a man. He then said that he needed money to stop stealing. His recitation included the remorse that he didn't want to go back to prison but didn't know what he could do to prevent it if no one gave him money. Frightened old ladies gave him coins immediately in the hopes that he would leave and go back to his family in Guayaquil. My fiancee immediately, said "look at him, the "desgraciado" is obviously from Guayaquil". Shortly thereafter we encountered a young "ratero" who entered the bus and pleaded for money because he "was dying". He pulled up his shirt and showed us all his wounds, protruding intestines, and smattering of blood. He apparently had been stabbed and was as pallid as a ghost. This movie, which has scenes more graphic, is true cinema verite and shows the sordid side of the big city that fortunately is uncommon in the smaller towns. There was not an instant of slow time or a moment of boredom in this simple but masterful production. The director said all that I've feared of the underside of Ecuador and did it with haunting but suble scenes. I highly recommend the movie for all that it evokes.
James Fortier
Disturbing and Vivid View of Ecuador's Dark Side October 1, 2002
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Since books were written and traveler's tales recorded, highland Ecuador has had the reputation of being the safe haven of the Andes, a gentle law abiding country that has always been bordered by the thug societies of Colombia to the north, and the oppressive military stronghold of Peru to the south. Times have changed. The roads that once barely made it from Guayaquil to Quito or from Tulcan ,on the Colombian border, to the heart of Quito are now highways that have brought world culture and chaos to this formerly placid country. My memories of innocence and lack of crime in the Quito of the early 70's became so tarnished and changed with my last few recent trips to the capital. This movie embellished my fears and distrust of the seething underbelly of the new Quito. In the movie, the scene that aroused so many memories was the glimpse of the Cumanda bus station, where one of the "rateros" slowly walks up to the sleeping gringo and steals, with a knife, his waist pack. I heard so many times on my last trip to Quito from everyone from taxi drivers to relatives of my fiancee, who was born and raised in Quito, "Times have changed..Be careful". The summer of 2001, we boarded a bus in Quito at the Cumanda Terminal and were met after a short time by a "gentleman" who explained to us on the bus that he had been recently released from prison for robbing a man. He then said that he needed money to stop stealing. His recitation included the remorse that he didn't want to go back to prison but didn't know what he could do to prevent it if no one gave him money. Frightened old ladies gave him coins immediately in the hopes that he would leave and go back to his family in Guayaquil. My fiancee immediately, said "look at him, the "desgraciado" is obviously from Guayaquil". Shortly thereafter we encountered a young "ratero" who entered the bus and pleaded for money because he "was dying". He pulled up his shirt and showed us all his wounds, protruding intestines, and smattering of blood. He apparently had been stabbed and was as pallid as a ghost. This movie, which has scenes more graphic, is true cinema verite and shows the sordid side of the big city that fortunately is uncommon in the smaller towns. There was not an instant of slow time or a moment of boredom in this simple but masterful production. The director said all that I've feared of the underside of Ecuador and did it with haunting but suble scenes. I highly recommend the movie for all that it evokes.
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