A gut-twisting morality tale
99 Homes 12A Cert, 112 min
★★★★ ★ Dir Ramin Bahrani
Starring Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon, Laura Dern
The actor Michael Shannon is known for playing serial killers, holy fools and intergalactic warlords, but in 99 Homes, he plays an estate agent – which has really allowed him to ratchet the sociopathy up a notch.
Rick Carver (Shannon) specialises in foreclosures. When a homeowner can’t pay their mortgage, he swoops in to handle the eviction: an ugly business for which he’s handsomely rewarded.
“America doesn’t bail out losers,” he says. “It’s a nation that was built on bailing out winners. The country is rigged.”
When we first get a sustained look at him in action, his victim is construction worker Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield).
Carver arrives on the doorstep, confronts Dennis, his mother (Laura Dern) and son (Noah Lomax) and within minutes, they’re standing, on the pavement, watching the front lawn being slowly covered over by a drift of their belongings. The scene is fast and gut-twistingly tense, and over before anyone’s had time to think.
The Nashes decamp to a motel, but Dennis won’t let the matter lie, and drives to Carver’s office to confront his goons: the estate agent is quietly impressed by his nerve, and offers him work. At first it’s odd-jobs, but soon enough he’s also carrying out evictions, and the wages allow him to provide once more for his mother and son.
What makes this so thrilling as drama isn’t simply the fact of Dennis’s corruption but the speed with which it happens.
This is a timely, terrifically acted moral nail-biter.