99 Homes-2015

Director Ramin Bahrani

Starring Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon

Scott’s Review #633

Reviewed April 13, 2017

Grade: B+

99 Homes is a 2015 independent film whose central message is morality, bubbling to the surface throughout.

Our main hero faces a major dilemma.

Set in 2010 amid the dark housing-market crisis that left thousands of families facing foreclosure, the film is depressing but turns uplifting toward the end.

Reminiscent of The Big Short (2015) and Inside Job (2010) in subject matter, the film delivers a wonderful lead performance from Andrew Garfield, with a worthy supporting turn from Michael Shannon as an opportunist.

Director Ramin Bahrani immediately creates tension with a taut musical score that bombards the screen.

We see a poor victim of foreclosure, having shot himself to avoid the humiliation of being evicted from his home, followed by the introduction of a powerful real-estate mogul, Rick Carver.

Carver has wisely capitalized on Florida’s slew of working-class families living well beyond their means and novice homeowners, booted from their homes by adjustable mortgages they cannot afford.

Andrew Garfield plays Dennis Nash, a struggling construction worker, raising his young son and presumably supporting his mother (Laura Dern).

They are fated to be evicted even though they have tried to win an extension with the court- months behind on their mortgage payments. They feel victimized and are forced to move to a seedy motel that houses many others in the same circumstances.

Desperate for work, Dennis ironically ends up working for Rick and becomes encased in the dishonest world of real estate scheming, manipulating banking and government rules at the expense of down-on-their-luck homeowners.

The main point is the exploitation of the “working man” at the expense of “the man,” and Rick exemplifies this beast.

Dennis represents the goodness of humanity as he wrestles with the moral repercussions of evicting families, since he has faced similar circumstances.

Is the money worth the pain and the hardship he causes people? How is it that Rick has no morals, but Dennis does? Will Dennis choose money and lose himself in the process? What would the viewer do?

Despite the moral questions, the film plays like a slick thriller, with a few slight contrivances and a “wrapped up in a neat bow” ending.

This slightly dulls the film at times. It is implied that it ends happily for Dennis and that Rick gets his “just desserts”, but what about the characters kicked out of their homes?

Sadly, as in real life, they are largely forgotten by the end and play as footnotes in a larger story. Some follow-up as to what happens to them might have been nice.

99 Homes is a thinking-man’s film and will undoubtedly leave the viewer asking what they would do in many of the situations Dennis faces.

The emotions ooze from the face of Andrew Garfield as Bahrani uses many close-ups, and enough cannot be said for Garfield’s bravura performance.

In one heart-wrenching scene, he is forced to evict a man and his wife and children from their home; the man is reduced to tears, comforted by his wife-Dennis is pained.

In another, an older man with nowhere to go is evicted and defeated by the side of the road.

These scenes may have played as overwrought, but Garfield convincingly brings honesty and raw emotion to the work.

Laura Dern is good as Lynn, the young mother to Garfield’s Dennis, and I am perplexed why she was cast; she barely seems old enough to play his mom convincingly, but she pulls it off.

However, I couldn’t help but want more from this Oscar-nominated actress. Sure, there is one great scene when Lynn realizes the extent of Dennis’s involvement with Rick, but I wanted more.

Still, the acting all around in this film is superb.

What bothered me most about 99 Homes (2015) is that situations like the ones in the film reflect countless real-life experiences driven by greed, dishonesty, and uncaring people, and that is a sad realization.

Director Bharani, with a stellar cast, brings this realism to the big screen through raw, honest storytelling.

Independent Spirit Award Nominations: Best Supporting Male-Michael Shannon