99 Homes is an American drama about house repossession. Bummer, you might think, but here is what you don’t yet know: films about house repossessions can be electrifying. Or at least this one is. Set in 2008 or thereabouts, against the backdrop of the real-estate bust and ensuing foreclosure crisis, this has much to say about a system that allows the rich to get richer while the poor get shat on (basically), but, above and beyond that, it is also nail-bitingly tense, as gripping as any thriller, and it will totally tear your heart out. In terms of impact, it may even be the Cathy Come Home of our times.
Directed and co-written by Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart, Goodbye Solo), it stars Andrew Garfield and Michael Shannon, who are otherwise Spiderman and General Zod, but not today, as they have better things to do. Today, Garfield is Dennis Nash, a construction worker who lives in suburban Orlando, in the house he grew up in.
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