99 Homes (2014)

The movie starts out well, and the first eviction scene will leave you shaking in your boots imagining your family and belongings getting foreclosed and tossed into the street. I can't think of another film that focuses on the eviction process so intensely.

You're better skipping the end of the movie (after the scene with the old man). The last forty minutes of the film are not satisfying at all, and just gets dumb with characters acting more and more ridiculously. In the beginning of the movie, many of the characters act over the top for the sake of dramatic tension, but it it gets to be too much towards the end.

Fmovies: To really understand what US free economy is capable of! Like a punch in the stomach especially for Europeans! We mostly have a false (PINK) image of American society! I Think Europeans ( I as for one) are lucky to be born on this side of the Ocean! Unluckily (commercial) distribution was strict to show it in European Theatres. Thanks to TV, on demand or DVD people SHOULD watch it at any cost! Direction and actors were FANTASTIC!!! A "pleasant" punch in the belly to confront ourselves with Modern Society!

In 99 Homes, there is a point in the film where our villain states that people get too emotional about houses, at the end of the day it is a rectangular box.

This is an important point, buy your house, pay the mortgage off and the house is yours. Re-mortgage it, extend the loan for that extension you do not need, or go for that bigger house and you put that house at risk.

Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) is a single father working in construction but the post 2008 recession means hard times for him and he loses his house and has to quickly move with his mother to a motel.

Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) is the real estate agent who forecloses the properties on behalf of the bank. He runs a slick operation, he has the police on the payroll, he cares little about the financial situation of those fallen behind and he is greedy enough to make as much money as possible from the banks by alleging that the former occupants damaged the property and appliances when in reality he has taken it away and then puts it back but bills the bank for it.

By a strange quirk, Dennis volunteers to work for Carver in a house his usual builders refuse to enter and starts a strange relationship where Dennis ruthlessly does Carver's dirty work and earn enough money to get a better house for his son.

However like Wall Street, the film is a morality play, Carver says in the course of the film along the lines that he tried to play by the book but it did not work out, you have to cheat the system. Dennis goes along with it but you know that he will soon realise that he has gone too far.

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 film is a polemic, not very subtle even though it tries in places to make Carver appear human. The final showdown is maybe low key but it works, the film does not need a big contrived ending.

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.

99 Homes fmovies. Say what you want about America but money is a very big part of our society. It's a free-for-all pursuit of money and it so helps with having a good family background. If you can't afford college to get your degree or don't have a career after high school, you are on your own. It's like high school all over where you have to find yourself again.

99 Homes has many themes pertinent to today's society. From the idea of money and how to handle your money and also the banking system, it's an accurate image of our society today. Who knows how it will hold up twenty years down the road due to how society is going to change but for now 99 Home knows exactly what's going in the world now and tells it's story in a very original way.

Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) is an unemployed construction worker who gets evicted along with his family from his home by businessman and con-man Rick Carver (Michael Shannon). As a way of getting his childhood home back, Dennis joins Rick's business team not knowing what lies ahead for him.

As most kids after high school, I didn't have a plan for myself and college was my only option. I was lucky enough to get a good job at a grocery store that will be able to support me though college. Even though I had my differences with my hometown, growing up in one of the richest towns in Michigan had it's perks also. It's so hard and heartbreaking to watch Dennis not have money or a name to himself. He must support his mother Lynn (Laura Dern) and his son Conner (Noah Lomax) through only construction jobs. Then you have someone like Carver who's at the different end of the spectrum and doing everything right for himself but he is someone who makes his big dough from forcing people out of their own homes and in the wrong way. As we expect, Michael Shannon, always plays a determined and powerful character and he is able to captivate every character that he plays. That said, Andrew Garfield's performance is even more impressive. He is able to express through emotions the things his character is dealing with and he takes you on a ride with him. He plays a character who does not know how to save his family and who is wondering if the scheme he is involved in is the right thing to do. His morals and values are being severely tested.

Another example of the money ideas at play here is the setting. The movie is set in Orlando, Florida, with some of the biggest houses on the street sitting next to the smallest houses where the evictions happen. It is such an accurate image again of how different the concept "money" is for everyone. Some people are set for life where others are living paycheck to paycheck. This film seems to know both sides of that so well.

99 Homes is a film that the main topic is eviction and really this should have been dull ride. How this film is able make this topic interesting and thought-provoking is very impressive. 99 Homes is so off the map on this topic but in a good way.

99 Homes is a character study with Oscar quality performances especially from Garfield. It is also societal story and commentary, a story of determination and one of the top films of the year all rolled in one. There are literally are 99 reasons to go see this movie.

I'm a huge fan of filmmaker Ramin Bahrani, and I found his latest offering a searing and powerful film. Set in Florida, in 2010, at the height of the foreclosure crisis and the Great Recession, this can be a most difficult movie to watch at times, not only due to the heart- rending subject matter, but also due to Bahrani's incredible way of presenting the stark reality of the human condition and human behavior.

The superb actor Michael Shannon is perfectly cast as Rick Carver, the corrupt and cold-hearted real estate broker, who for the past three years has been getting rich by specializing in the foreclosure field. 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.

Another fine actor Andrew Garfield co-stars as Dennis Nash, a financially struggling construction worker who's being evicted by Carver from his childhood home, along with his mother Lynn (Laura Dern) and his young son Connor (Noah Lomax). In his desperation to save his home, he ends up taking a job from Carver, which will propel him into Carver's sleazy and corrupt world. It will all spiral down into a most dramatic finale.

In summary, director Bahrani and co-writer Amir Naderi, and led by the performances of Shannon and Garfield, have given us another very strong drama, difficult to watch at times, but, in my opinion, definitely worth staying with.

Micheal Shannon really controls the screen when he's on it. He plays villain well, especially well in this film, showing both sides of the coin.

99 Homes expresses how everyone was effected by the economy drop and how using the excuse of keeping afloat as a way to let doing what you have to do corrupt you.

99 homes is about the corruption of Dennis Nash, played by Andrew Garfield as he does what he has to do to get back his home for his mom and his child, after it being taken away from by Rick Carver, played by Micheal Shannon. Ironically Dennis goes to work for the enemy becoming the very person that put him in this situation.

You can't help to be emotional about 99 Homes, it's a movie about a period in history but it's so recent, you either are or know someone who has a story similar. Attacking such current events add to the drama and the tension of the movie.

It was interesting to watch this narration unfold and well acted by Micheal Shannon and Andrew Garfield. Very good watch.