Andrew Garfield faces hard times in morality tale '99 Homes'

<h3 class="briefHead">Mini-review: '99 Homes'</h3>

Ramin Bahrani's blistering contemporary morality tale "99 Homes" stars erstwhile Spider-Man Andrew Garfield as a young single father who loses his home when the bank forecloses on his modest house.

The only way the desperate man can dig his way out of poverty is to work for the very real estate capitalist who dumped his life possessions on the front yard in full view of his neighbors and friends.

Now, Garfield's Dennis Nash does to other people what Michael Shannon's Rick Carver did to him. And he's getting good at it.

"99 Homes" hardly counts subtlety as its major asset. It sets up a terrifyingly realistic paradox for Nash, who must quash the instincts of his heart to perform his primary, primal duty to protect and provide for his son Connor (Noah Lomax) and mother Lynn (Laura Dern).

Chicago actor Shannon slyly suggests that his corrupt, calculating Carver is less a monster than a simple survivalist, stuck in an economically depressed world that rewards only those with bottom lines for consciences.

"When you work for me, you're mine!" Carver snaps to his new protégé. Nash does his job, reluctantly. And inevitably, he winds up evicting a family he knows, creating the drama's hardest-hitting moments as Nash's own humanity stretches to the breaking point.

Bahrani directs "99 Homes" with outrage and a sense of urgency, a cinematic flag on the play of American politics in regards to how the system can be worked to the advantage of everyone but regular people struggling to make ends meet and keep a literal roof over their heads.

Admittedly, "99 Homes" goes for the gut and heart over the brain in its depiction of the nation's failed financial fallout. Had this been an early 1970s movie, Bahrani's story would certainly have ended on a more nihilistic note.

Here, the ending feels positively Frank Capra-esque in its execution, but almost artificial in the wake of 2015 reality.

<b>"99 Homes" opens at the River East 21, Century Centre in Chicago, plus Evanston's CineArts 6. Rated R for language, sexual references and violence. 112 minutes. ★ ★ ★ ½</b>

<i> Dann Gire's Reel Life column runs Friday in Time out!</i>