The Ratcatcher Scene You Didn't Get To See In The Suicide Squad
"The Suicide Squad" is two hours and thirteen minutes long. In that time, a lot happens: We meet a team which is almost entirely wiped out within the film's opening, Harley (Margot Robbie) gets a school spear, there's polka dot vomit, clubbing, and, a giant, mind-controlling starfish from space.
In essence, "The Suicide Squad" is one of those movies that feels like a "Dungeons and Dragons" campaign where none of the players want to do what the Dungeon Master set up, and so they spend most of their time killing people they weren't supposed to kill and creating trouble that they didn't need in their lives.
In a real way, that is what Suicide Squad boss Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) deals with throughout the film, but in reality, the characters only do what writer/director James Gunn commands.
Even Gunn has his own limitations and has to reign it in. In an interview with Collider, the director revealed that his first assembly cut of "The Suicide Squad" was two hours and forty minutes — and he also revealed the scene he cut last before the film was locked. It turns out the scene in question involves the beating heart of the film, Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior).
A Ratcatcher, a Thinker, and a Polka Dot Man walk into a bar
Ratcatcher 2 plays a significant part in where the story of "The Suicide Squad" goes. She is the person who is able to convince King Shark (Sylvester Stallone) to not eat everyone else on the team, her willingness to trust King Shark engenders trust throughout the team, and it seems likely that Starro would have been utterly undefeatable without the help of all Ratcatcher's rodent allies.
We already know that Ratcatcher's story could have gone very differently. While Gunn decided to keep the scene where the squad kills a bunch of freedom fighters "by accident," he did not keep his original plan of killing Ratcatcher at some point in the story. The final scene Gunn cut from "The Suicide Squad" was a scene not only involving Ratcatcher, but two characters he ultimately does kill off: Polka Dot Man (David Dastmalchian) and The Thinker (Peter Capaldi).
"There's a whole section with Ratcatcher and King Shark and Polka-Dot Man and Thinker that I cut, that was pretty dynamite stuff," says Gunn about his final cut. "The hardest thing was some of Peter Capaldi and David Dastmalchian's best acting together."
As for where in the story the scene originally existed, "It's right after they're outside of the bar yeah. Right, when Rick Flagg and them are in the armored vehicle," Gunn explained.
While the scene was hard to lose, Gunn does not regret it. "We take our time a lot in the movie, and I'm proud of that, but it was taking our time at the wrong point in the film," he says. "So it was a good cut. It hurts. But that's how movie making is."
"The Suicide Squad" is in theaters and on HBO Max now.