The American Dream turns sour for Andrew Garfield’s blue-collar striver Dennis Nash in 99 Homes, a gripping cautionary drama set in 2010 Florida at the height of America’s subprime mortgage crisis. Evicted from his foreclosed family home, along with his young son (Noah Lomax) and mother (Laura Dern), he winds up going to work for the crooked real estate broker (Michael Shannon) who made him homeless.
Nash’s subsequent fortunes are a tad contrived, but Garfield skilfully conveys his inner anguish/turmoil as he learns from his ruthless new mentor how to prosper from the misery of others. Shannon’s cold-blooded villain is compelling, too, snarling a string of heartless maxims (‘America doesn’t bail out the losers. America was built by bailing out winners’) and giving us a chilling glimpse of American capitalism red in tooth and claw.
Certificate 15. Runtime 110 mins. Director Ramin Bahrani.
99 Homes is available to buy on Blu-ray and DVD from February 9th 2016 from Studiocanal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbuiJi52w9c
