Rats: A Phoenix Pick

Not even a midnight stroll through the Fenway can rival the revelations of James M. Felter's trenchant documentary about the rat infestation of DC's Willard Street (no joke). The film quickly confirms your worst suspicions: these vermin scavenge and screw like crazy and are not above rape, sodomy, and gobbling their young.

But though there's plenty of footage of the little scamps in their Hefty Bag heaven, Rats actually transcends — and, yes, redeems — its bewiskered subject matter. With the help of a candid parade of city officials and eccentric neighborhood folk, including a philosophical Jamaican crackhead, a prejudiced gay man, myriad garbage collectors, and a cagy cameo by Mayor Marion Barry, Felter makes reverberating points about bureaucracy, environmentalism, societal self-esteem, and racial inequity. Although the film gets a tad digressive, in the end, there's no question who the real rats are: as the camera zooms in on the still pink paw of a dead rodent, its skull clenched in the jaws of a trap, it's easy to mistake the delicate appendage for that of a human.

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