Ratboy Reviews

Actress Sondra Locke's directorial debut is an odd little film that, while suffering slightly from a dose of easy sentimentality, turns out to be a clever enough fable on the plight of the exploited. Nikki Morrison (Locke) is an ambitious Los Angeles window dresser who dreams of striking it rich some day. On an excursion to the local garbage dump in search of some unique items for her window display, Nikki happens upon two transients who have discovered a bizarre boy who looks a lot like a rat (S.L. Baird). The ratboy lives in the garbage dump. The two bums hold the ratboy captive with plans to sell him to the highest bidder. Seizing the opportunity, Nikki cons the men by telling them she's a journalist who can make their discovery famous. She whisks the ratboy away from them and, with the help of her dim-witted brothers (Gerrit Graham and Louie Anderson) and a clever street-hustler (Robert Townsend), launches into an exploitation campaign of her own. Although RATBOY suffers from some haphazard scripting and surface treatment of the underlying implications of the material, Locke succeeds at times in portraying the dichotomy between her character's compassion for and exploitation of the ratboy. Overall, however, the film fails to dig deeply.