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Garfield may be know for his role as afflicted teen Peter Parker or Spider-Man by many, while audiences may know Shannon best for his villainous turn as General Zod in the recent Superman reboot Man of Steel. The best part about watching 99 Homes is analyzing these men, and seeing them transform before our eyes into the demons that haunt the streets and doorsteps of everyday people. Sheltered in our own little seats and watching the unfortunate tragedy unfold on-screen, this compassionate slice of other people's reality is one of the most engaging features of 2014. Founded on concrete performances, sturdy direction and a narrative with a good roof on its head, 99 Homes is built to last. It's a film worth seeing just for the story, but with the superb performances, it makes a film you need to see.
Most people are stunned and still on the phone with their lawyers or their banks, trying to modify their home loans but to no avail. One of his evicted victims, Garfield's Dennis Nash, is jobless and so desperate that he goes to work for the man who evicted him and starts making money doing the same dirty deed to others. Together they steal, pillage, and forge legal documents to make more and more money evicting hard-working people.
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I think you could argue that the 'low' for Garfield just wasn't low enough for me to feel the heights of his 'highs'. It's one of the things Scorsese does so well is create arcs for characters that never feel hyper- realistic. I will say that there are some flaws in the movie including the fact that the film pretty much is heroes and villains. I say this meaning that the entire foreclosure plot isn't really dealt with in a fair way but the point of the movie was to show how corrupt people can corrupt an already corrupt system. Some of the best moments in the movie deal with people being told they can no longer stay in their homes and these are the moments that work the best in the movie. Ramin Bahrani co-wrote and directed this rather powerful and thought-provoking film that deals with the market crash of 2008.
The film opens with a brutal eviction sequence, filmed in one take. The story shifts to Dennis Nash , a single dad living with his mother and his little boy Connor in the family home. Mom works a hairdressing business out of the living room. Dennis goes to court to fight for more time, he tries to get a lawyer to work pro bono.
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In fact, this drama borders on thriller status in a couple of scenes, as clever editing and carefully timed music impress upon viewers the psychological tension that the characters are experiencing on screen. A major plot hole sticks out in the third act that seems immediately obvious, but somehow the characters never pick up on it, which paves a way for the required dramatic points to be made. The ending is also disappointing, because it leaves two storylines unresolved. Independent contractor Dennis Nash does his best to support his mother and his son with his increasingly intermittent income, but the day comes when the bank sends a foreclosure notice. Dennis tries to navigate the red tape and save his house, but time runs out, and slick, no-nonsense broker Rick Carver shows up to kick them out.
While everything here is very much fictional the director certainly gets his message across with some very realistic drama. It also doesn't hurt that you get two very good performances including one that ranks among the best of the year. Michael Shannon is great as he portrays Rick Carver as the present-day Gordon Gekko.
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Rick Carver (a hypnotically despicable Michael Shannon, “Man of Steel”) is looking at the dead body of a man who has just blown his brains out as the result of the former evicting the latter from his home. The body is the movie’s first shot, which quickly pans to Carver’s annoyed face, knowing the extra time this will take in his already tight schedule of kicking people off their houses. Living with his mom, Lynn (a delightfully righteous Laura Dern, “Wild”), and his son, Connor (a complexly innocent Noah Lomax, “Playing for Keeps”), Dennis has taken the hard responsibilities of his household as a young single father. When you think of intense films, real estate and evictions aren't the first thing that come to mind.
Usually we think of a bus rigged with a bomb set to go off if the speed drops below 50 mph as edge of your seat entertainment. Not a family being told they must leave their foreclosed home in two minutes. This is why you should never judge a book by its cover or in this instance a movie by its plot description. 99 Homes maybe one of the most gripping, well acted and frustrating films to watch this year and there are no bombs to dismantle or evil supernatural villains to defeat. We’re in 2010 Florida, where construction worker/electrician and single dad Dennis Nash is having a tough time providing for himself and his young son Connor . Then Dennis and his mother Lynn are thrown out of the house where Dennis was born for being late with bank payments.
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Lynn is more accustomed to the vagaries of fate, but Dennis keeps trying to figure out how to get the house back. It turns out that most of the few paying construction jobs in the area come from Carver’s real estate company, and Dennis’ willingness to get his hands dirty appeals to the boss. Soon Carver gives Dennis a real job, with real money, and real moral dilemmas. Oh yeah, no problem, it's only the biggest deal of my life worth twenty million dollars, I'll trust the little quivering nincompoop with delivering the saving papers to the court house in the nick of time. Maybe a normal person would have a lawyer doing that dirty work but no, you trust the jerk that you evicted a month ago. And even the premise of that entire major plot point is preposterous.
Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update. Tap "Sign me up" below to receive our weekly newsletter with updates on movies, TV shows, Rotten Tomatoes podcast and more. After moving Lynn and Connor into a motel, Nash is forced to do some quick thinking. So when a confrontation over stolen tools leads to an offer to work for Carver, Nash grabs at it — even if his first task turns out to be shoveling backed-up sewage out of a foreclosed house.
A drama of great power and subtlety, 99 HOMES manages to talk about one of today's most pressing and troubling issues without getting preachy or overbearing. At the same time, the movie borrows the classical structure of the Faust story while still managing to feel immediate and relevant. Parents need to know that 99 Homes is a powerful, thought-provoking indie drama that weaves the recent financial crisis with the classic Faust legend. Expect a couple of scenes of bloody violence and gore, a dead body, and some fighting, as well as a house filled with excrement. Language is fairly strong, with uses of "f--k," "s--t," "c--ksucker," and "a--hole." There's some sexual innuendo and passionate kissing, as well as scantily clad women and objectification of female characters.
One big issue I had though was that part of the American foreclosure process was difficult to follow if you were outside of the USA, you get a gist of it but maybe the film needed to explain it more. Parts of the film is moving and also infuriating as both Dennis and Carver ruthlessly evict people with the help of the compliant police. They stand no chance in court as the judges are against those in arrears and Carver is always one step ahead making sure any embarrassing paperwork disappears. The intense drama was increased by it being about recent events and well acted. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 29, 2014.
The movie is trying to inject some nobility into Dennis artificially and push a moral structure into the movie's framework. It would be simpler to see Dennis slowly accept his immorality. The final immorality against Frank Greene would be more compelling and more natural.
Unfortunately, many of his tactics including documentation fraud, and the short shrift given to homeowners in the courts, are not fiction but have been freely documented in the past. 99 Homes begins, the newly unemployed construction worker Dennis has missed just enough mortgage payments to land him in a rudimentary court hearing right around the same time that Carver shows up. The pace of these proceedings is startling, certainly speedier than Dennis or his mom expected. In a couple of minutes, they've got their belongings on the front lawn; a couple of hours later, they've loaded as much as they can into his pickup truck and moved into a motel down the road. The ending is quite predictable but the film keeps those watching interesting in what will happen next. An unemployed father loses his home through a foreclosure but soon he starts working for real estate agent Rick Carver who just happens to be the man who evicted him from his home.
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