American economic blues
By: Ryan Permison, Staff Writer
The mortgage crisis of the late 2000s hit the economy pretty hard. Many families were evicted from their homes when the banks took ownership of their property. This brings us to the newly released film, “99 Homes.”
In Florida, Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) is doing all he can to provide for his son, Connor, and his mother, Lynn (Laura Dern). However, one day, real estate agent Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) evicts them from their home.
Out of desperation, Dennis agrees to help Rick evict other families from their homes so he can earn enough money to buy his own house.
The relationship between Dennis and Rick is a tense one. As Rick takes Dennis under his wing, the jobs become more dangerous with the payoff becoming much greater with each job.
Each time Dennis gives homeowners the bad news, he loses a piece of his soul. From start to finish, you get the idea of how bad this part of American history will become.
With each passing moment, the tension and emotion in this film rises. It shows just how far a father is willing to go to provide for his family. We learn more about Nash’s and Carver’s background as the movie progresses.
The supporting cast does a great job of adding to every scene. The acting, pacing and direction of the film are the things that mainly stood out to me.
I know Andrew Garfield has done several movies before this, but this is the best performance of his career. He has come a long way since his days as Spider-Man.
Michael Shannon has made a habit of playing the antagonist in several movies.
He did a great job as General Zod in “Man of Steel” a few years ago, now he just took the role of Carver and ran away with it. Every time he is on screen, he commands attention, and you listen to everything he says.
The ending was a bit of letdown, and writers could have done a better job with it. I am not a homeowner, but the film tells me that it is very hard work and you make have to make sacrifices sometimes in order to keep a roof over your head.
This was a very difficult time in our nation’s history. This is one of the best films of the year and I highly recommend “99 Homes.” I give the film nine out of ten.