The movie is set in Orlando, Florida, the fairy tale world with the world's largest Disney. And those comfortable suburban mansions that seem to be equally rich are also unreal like fairy tales. The story is based on the subprime mortgage crisis that began in 2006. With the cooling of the US housing market, especially the increase in short-term interest rates, the subprime mortgage repayment interest rate has risen sharply, and the burden of repayment of home buyers has greatly increased. The continued cooling of the housing market has also made it difficult for buyers to sell their homes or refinance through mortgages. This vicious circle situation directly caused the borrowers of large batches of loans to be unable to repay the loans on time, and the bank took back the houses but failed to sell them at high prices, resulting in large losses.
Dennis Nash, a construction worker played by Ann Pig Garfield (Andrew Garfield), is a living specimen in this subprime mortgage crisis. The day after arguing in court that he could not afford to pay the mortgage and asked the judge to forgive him for some time, the real estate agent Mike Carver (Michael Shannon) who worked for the investment bank took the police to ransack his home, ignoring that a man was with his mother. With the dignity in front of her son, she proficiently performed those false lines that "we empathize and ask for understanding". If the homeowner finds it difficult to accept, the inviolable police will forcibly break in and read the principle of "This house belongs to the bank at this moment. Either clean up the property immediately, or go to jail with us", and let the bankrupt take everything in kind. Together with the broken American dream, they were packaged and thrown into the back seat of the pickup truck, and headed to a motel in the suburbs where there were as many demons as Dennis.
The director Ramin Bahani, who has proved himself good at dealing with the real problems of the lower level in "Trolley Man" and "Latin Boy's Sky", continues to create an anxious atmosphere for the failed protagonist. Of course, those who are expelled dare not violently resist. Law, and must resign with his mother and son to live in the shabby room. An Zhu's flustered and pitiful expression, and Michael Shannon's always cold expression, formed a sharp contrast and conflict, as the real estate agent's demolisher had the upper hand. Even if you just wanted to attack for dignity, but you were sent to an awkward situation by the broomstick thrown by the demolisher-now there is such a job opportunity, in order to let the children eat a meal, will you come or not? The chilling and conclusive thing is that in the face of embarrassment, dignity has never been worth anything.
From then on, screenwriters and set designers began to use their ingenuity, searching for real news, and building unbelievable bankrupt houses. Dennis with a broomstick, the first thing he had to face was a set of mansions that was blown up by an angry bankrupt and flooded with excrement. "250 dollars, I will go all out." Yes, this deal endured the stench. The little money that came back can be described as the life-saving money of the Dennis family. So next, is it time to make persistent efforts and make new contributions to drive Mike out of his agent?
Thus, from cleaning broken houses to driving out nails, and then from fraudulent accounts to cleverly establishing names and requisitioning land, Dennis became the Faust who traded souls with the devil Mephistopheles in the Western classic narrative, and he became more and more familiar with his new ideas. Professional status, facing bankrupt families and even widowed elderly people with an innocent look, "Believe me, this kind of life is extremely uncomfortable not only for you, but also for me, but..."
But it is not like the "mentor who drives him but tutors him" "Mike, not a hard-hearted Dennis, has also begun an extremely painful battle between heaven and man in the process of rapid wealth growth. And as we all know, carrying a ghost is always bad, even if what is waiting for him is a bad thing that can be called a crime.
If "Guardian Steal", which won an Oscar for best documentary, is an essay criticizing Wall Street with serious facts, then today’s "99 Homes" is the most intimidating example of this powerful essay. After all, for the families of bankrupt workers who continue to live in cheap motels, the conspiracy theories of high-end financial players such as Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch are too clever and incomprehensible, or only Dennis’s Dianpei story has the same warmth.
View more about 99 Homes reviews
