Authority figures arrive at your door: “You have two minutes to grab the things you need and love before leaving never to return”.
99 Homes looks to add to the pantheon of fascinating anti-heroes. Indeed the reprehensible and totally self centred drive of real estate agent Rick Carver is so compelling that you cannot look away, though ultimately his story isn’t nearly as powerful and unflinching as the character.
Arriving at the perfect time in the wake of the property crash that triggered the Global Financial Crisis, Rick Carver is a vicious creature; a shark in fact. He never stops moving as he cruises the neighbourhoods looking for opportunities to profit from the misfortunes of others. It might be a loophole that could force an eviction, a vacant home that could be turned for a profit. Or when all else fails the chance to illegally manipulate a situation in order to generate such a situation.
Michael Shannon oozes gross as a modern day white collar gangster, stomping on countless lives on his way to personal riches.
Now sharks aren’t known for their nurturing side, so it isn’t for love that Rick Carver pauses his fraudulent crusade to take Dennis Nash (fgfhfhfn) under his wing… fin. No, Carver sees the power of using others to generate revenue for him. The compounding benefits of scuzzball behaviour.
No matter that Carver was the man who evicted Dennis and his young son and mother from their former home. No matter that Dennis is a handyman by trade and not a sleazy manipulator.
Because many hands make crime work.
Andrew Garfield continues to build on a cv that goes well beyond Spider-Man, but this is the Michael Shannon showcase, and we are all so many aghast onlookers.
99 Homes tells a timely tale but in a clumsy way. Some of the decisions and developments are puzzling to say the least, and the big finale is similarly perplexing. What could have been a cautionary warning about the perils of villainous men, ends as no more than a tour de force performance from Shannon, and a indelible character somewhat wasted.
Final Rating – 6.5 / 10. Bad guys will always be more interesting than good guys. But bad alone can’t make a film.
