Garage owner Claude has a rat problem. He hires an expert to deal with the problem. The Rat Man is truly an expert in his field to the point of resembling a rat himself. While Claude and his employee are fascinated by his methods they are also quite unsettled by him.
Another of Wes Anderson's four-episode short story-series, all adaptations of Roald Dahl stories. The others in the series are The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan and Poison.
Wes Anderson adapting a Roald Dahl story seems a perfect combination: the clever innocence of Dahl's writing, Anderson's whimsical, stylised direction. It's been done before, to great effect; 'Fantastic Mr Fox' (2009) was brilliant.
Having already watched two of Anderson's Roald Dahl-based short films, the style and presentation of the films are a given. A quirky, reasonably engaging story, narration with the narrator talking in short, bullet-point-like sentences, highly-stylised backdrops and props, great performances (in this case from Ralph Fiennes, Rupert Friend and Richard Ayoade).
A less positive aspect has been that while the story is engaging, it has no punchline. It simply fizzles out. The Rat Catcher is no exception.
Here it is a touch worse in that the story never really seems to fully get going anyway. At least the other two had a fair degree of momentum.
Still, it's interesting and watchable enough.
