The bank swallows Dennis Nash's home in one gulp and he and his mother move into a ratty motel peopled by others in the same predicament. One thing they all have in common is the efforts of real estate bucaneer Rick Carver who makes his living causing this. When I say living I mean fortune. Dennis is facing an increasingly tight corner until, offered a job by the force of darkness, gives in and chooses gain.
This might just be another angry tract by one of the dispossessed but for a writing hand equally at ease with a feather quill or a sledgehammer. And then there's the casting. Young Anglo-American actor Andrew Garfield brings an innocence begging for the flavours of corruption and the mighty Michael Shannon whose thunderous voice and monumental presence delivers hard truth and silky seduction to the ingenue. But mention must be made of Laura Dern as Dennis' mother, a buoy of pragmatism in this tempest of masculinity.
99 Homes is a story from our own front lines, a film that pleads against the lightless contempt of the possessors for the dispossessed. We're seeing it now because it never goes away. This is an opportunity to do some decent shouting at the screen.
Come, then, a cough drop for each of you and your best enraged bellow. This masterclass in modern bluster ends, as it must, with a silent exchange that will dig into you and stay there.
Your couch!
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