Director: Ramin Bahrani
Writers: Ramin Bahrani (story), Ramin Bahrani
Stars: Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon, Laura Dern |
Storyline
Around the world everyone knows that honest hard work gets you nowhere. In sunny Orlando, Florida, construction worker Dennis Nash learns this the hard way when he is evicted from his home by a charismatic, gun-toting real-estate broker, Rick Carver. Humiliated and homeless, Nash has no choice but to move his mom and nine-year old son into a shabby, dangerous motel. All is lost. Until an unexpected opportunity arises for Nash to strike a deal with the devil - he begins working for Carver in a desperate attempt to get his home back. Carver seduces Nash into a risky world of scamming and stealing from the banks and the government; he teaches Nash how the rich get richer. Living a double life, Nash hides his new boss and job from his family. He rises fast and makes real money; he dreams bigger. But there is a cost. On Carver's orders, Nash must evict honest families from their homes - just as it happened to him.
Movie Reviews
A few years back, I interviewed independent film writer/director Ramin Bahrani for his feature, "Goodbye Solo" and Ramin is a creative talent whose profound understanding of cinema and filmmaking stays with me after all these years, he's the kind of man who does his research, he does his homework thoroughly. So I'm glad that he's come back with this latest and very powerful little film called 99 HOMES In 99 HOMES, which Ramin co-wrote with Amir Naderi, actor and former Spider-Man star, Andrew Garfield plays a young father named Dennis Mash, who's struggling to make ends meet, working job to job every day so that he could provide for his little son and they live together with Dennis' mom, played by Laura Dern, in a simple house they've owned for years. Or so they think they own it, until the day that a greedy real estate broker Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) stops by and informs them that they've been evicted, that the banks are taking away their home which they could no longer pay for. Forced to move into a motel where apparently has housed many other evicted families, Dennis Mash is determined to not let his kid and his mom stay there. He ends up working for Rick Carver who takes Dennis under his wing and show him the ropes, this dirty game of real estate and foreclosure in a country that favors the fortunate few instead the needs of the many. This work changes Dennis, he becomes conflicted between selling his soul to the devil and providing for his family.
Those of you who know me well would know that I'm not a huge fan of agenda films, I don't hate them, but if a film is only about pushing a certain agenda while the story's existence is slim to none, that is usually the formula to turning me off. But 99 HOMES is not like that at all, yes it speaks the painful truth about our society today, and yes in many ways, it can be seen as exactly what Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has been preaching from town to town about income inequality and how the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. But believe it or not, 99 HOMES in many ways is a drama/thriller. This is about a man who's at rock bottom and climbs his way up by making deals with the devil, essentially, and that pushes him off to the edge, the film has story, it's not just an agenda. It's a well-structured, well-written story that happens to resonate with many working class families out there, but a solid story at the heart of it. There's a little bit of Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" elements and there's a bit of Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon" in there as well.
I don't know much about housing or the dirty tricks and mind games of Real Estate but clearly, Ramin, once again, has done his homework. He knows what exactly it is that's wrong with the system and he uses that for the benefit of telling his story and in developing his characters. He also involves real people who have no acting backgrounds in this film in order to elevate that sense of feeling that this tragedy could happen to you, and me, or anybody. It's quite a gamble or a big risk when you involve real folks instead of actors but for this case, they work well in serving the story. You feel sympathy for them even more because of that.
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