To steal a sports metaphor, when Michael Shannon is in one his his “zones” the result is pure magic. In 99 Homes, Shannon portrays Rick Carver, a calm-as-a-monk, slyly ruthless opportunist. His game? Real estate repossession manipulation and outright scams, and he’s a hall-of-fame level competitor. The plot device here is Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield), a single father and unemployed building tradesman who lives with his mom (Laura Dern) and his young boy, Connor, gets tossed out of his home by Carter but that is far from the last they will see of each other.
The Nash’s removal is sudden-slap-in-the-face brusque, complete with cops throwing their possessions on their front lawn. They retreat to a motel. Nash looks for odd jobs, and, swallowing his pride (and holding his nose), manages to do a particularly unpleasant job for Carter. What follows is The Odd Couple/Housing Crisis Edition–minus the laughs.
Nash, caught in the desperate predicament of trying to save his home after all is apparently lost, faces a Hobson’s choice of compromise. For all of Nash’s caution, once he gets deeper and deeper into aiding his new predatory boss, Carter plays him like a violin. Their interactions are a sight to behold. Shannon is in his finest form since his uncanny performance in Take Shelter (2011).
Nash hides the whole thing from his mom despite bringing her and Connor a string of gifts that continuously escalates in value (this isn’t one of Dern’s more cerebral characters). By and large, though, director Ramin Bahrani (Chop Shop, Goodbye Solo) keeps the implausibility in check. 99 Homes contains a big heaping of solid drama, loads of compelling anger from stung victims, and dollops of suspense–even if things do errantly veer off into melodrama at its conclusion.