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Ramin Bahrani—writer-director of the warm character studies Man Push Cart and Goodbye Solo—isn’t kidding around with his latest, which begins with a realtor complaining that a certain house will be harder to resell now that its former owner has messily committed suicide in it. It's 2010, and the vulture, Rick Carver (Michael Shannon), makes his living grabbing up foreclosed-upon homes. He’s the soulless counterpart to Bahrani's emotion-driven protagonist, Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield), a jack-of-all-trades who loses his house to Carver, and then, desperate to support his family, takes a job working for him. Carver’s greed-driven operation requires numbness to the pain of evicting people, plus some actual law-breaking; the question is how dirty Dennis will let himself get. Bahrani's earnest, didactic style is occasionally strident, but the film’s simple formula gives it the feel of a morality play, with Carver as the devil and Dennis as the goodman being tempted. Shannon is magnetic as the conniving, acid-tongued Carver, making the film funnier than you might expect it to be, while Garfield’s expressive tearfulness provides emotional balance. It’s a potent mix.
Official Site: www.99homesmovie.com
Director: Ramin Bahrani
Producer: Ashok Amritraj, Ramin Bahrani, Kevin Turen, Justin Nappi, Andrew Garfield, Manu Gargi, Mohammed Al Turki, Ron Curtis and Arcadiy Golubovich
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon, Laura Dern, Tim Guinee, Noah Lomax, Clancy Brown, J.D. Evermore, Judd Lormand, Cullen Moss, John Armijo and Nicole Barré
Director: Ramin Bahrani
Producer: Ashok Amritraj, Ramin Bahrani, Kevin Turen, Justin Nappi, Andrew Garfield, Manu Gargi, Mohammed Al Turki, Ron Curtis and Arcadiy Golubovich
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon, Laura Dern, Tim Guinee, Noah Lomax, Clancy Brown, J.D. Evermore, Judd Lormand, Cullen Moss, John Armijo and Nicole Barré
