MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
Ratcatcher (1999, 94 minutes)
Garbage bags are beginning to pile up in front of the council housing tenements in one of Glasgow’s rougher neighborhoods, in the mid-’70s. The dustmen are on strike, and things will get worse before the army is called in to clean up the mess.
In one of these dreary flats, with a murky canal running nearby, 11-year-old Ryan Quinn (Thomas McTaggart) is arguing with his mum (Jackie Quinn). “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you umpteen times, keep your trousers tucked into your boots,” she says as she jams his pant legs into his wellies. “I look like a spaz with them tucked in,” he complains. “You won’t say that when you trip and fall on your backside,” she says. “I look stupid,” he says.
Lagging behind his mother out in the street, Ryan calls out. “Ma, can I play, please?” “We’re going to see your dad,” she answers. But soon as she becomes distracted, he turns around, skirts several kids kicking a football back and forth, and runs toward the canal where his friend James is skimming pebbles off the water’s surface.
Slightly taller, James (William Eadle) pushes Ryan into the canal up to his knees, all in fun. “You fucking bastard!” says Ryan as he scoops up a handful of muck from the bottom and flings it in James’ face. “I got you one there,” he says as James scrapes the mud from his eyes. The horseplay suddenly escalates when James ducks Ryan’s head under the water. When his friend resurfaces, James pushes him out into the deepest part of the canal, and he disappears. As James scampers onto the bank, he looks back over his shoulder. There is no thrashing about, no bubbles. Ryan is just gone.
Petrified, James runs home without telling anyone what’s happened. He watches from a window as an ambulance arrives and takes away his friend’s body. Days later, when the hearse bearing Ryan’s coffin pulls up in front of his mother’s flat, three teenage boys drinking beer on the sidewalk offer a toast “to the wee man.”
Ryan’s mother confronts his father as they lug a bulky wardrobe into a moving van. “You killed my boy! You weren’t there!” she sobs. “He was my boy, as well!” he moans. Walking home from the shops, James’ mother consoles the bereft woman, sitting on the curb. “James, would you give me a wee hug?” begs Mrs. Quinn. As he obliges, a look of dread creeps over James’ face. “Go up to Ryan’s room and get the box that’s on his pillow,” she urges. She gives James the sandals she’d bought for her son the day he drowned. That night, James takes great care to scuff up the new shoes. The guilt, more’s the pity, won’t be so easy to sponge away.
