User reviews

"Ratoeira" ("Mousetrap") is a dark humored short film about three clumsy guys (Ricardo Petráglia, Augusto Madeira and Marx Maranhão) who got word of a perfect robbery plan: a big house with no one there and the content available is lots of money and some jewelry. They dress themselves in fashion to not raise suspicion and to pretend they're coming out from a church meeting and off they go. But barely they arrive there a surprising and awkward event distracts from the perfect plan: a lonely lady appears all of sudden and next to her there's a coffin in what appears to be a funeral procedure of her dead son.

Mixing elements of comedy, thriller and even of action films (towards the ending), "Ratoeira" presents a very humored series of situations where a confusing trio simply got involved into a "mousetrap" of a situation where they couldn't predict how to react to everything that happens to them. The character played by Madeira is hilarious since due to a coincidental issue that happened before the robbery, he carried a bible with him of which he uses to read for the deceased and his mother while one of the guys is observing possible movements and the third is trying to find the money. More and more weird surprises and people will come their way, much to our amusement.

The movie has all the great elements and settings to compose a very good thing to watch and it does succeed in it thanks to his idea, the way things are presented with both tension and humor (some obvious, others are quite darker), the fine acting by everyone involved. No complaints about it. But a couple of things could have a better explaining or a better development, specially the final moments. I felt it was too rushed in a certain way and I'd really appreciate it more with an extended running time where some characters could have a better development and presentation than the one they got. A feature film reuniting everyone involved from writers and directors and the cast would suit this project a lot better. 9/10.