99 Homes

In 99 Homes, Dennis Nash (played by Andrew Garfield) is evicted from his home. Desperate to move back in to this home with his mother Lynn (played by Laura Dern) and son, he decides to work for the realtor working for the bank that seized it. This realtor (played by Michael Shannon) entices him with the ability to make quick money, but his operation proves not to be above board. Dennis suddenly is able to make the money to at least move his family back into his home, but he's not able to tell his mother and son what he does, and he sometimes has a hard time looking himself in the eye.

 

99 Homes is a very tension-filled film from beginning to end. The film opens with a gut-wrenching sequence in which Dennis and family are evicted and given a short time to collect some of their belongings while the rest are thrown out on the front lawn, and eventually Dennis is in Rick Carver's shoes, responsible for getting people out of their homes so that those homes can be sold. 

I'd recommend the film for the performances of Shannon and Garfield. Michael Shannon almost always is worth the price of admission, and here he plays a captivating villain. Garfield's face shows the constant struggle that his character is undergoing. His heart's in a good place, but his head's telling him something isn't quite right.

One quibble I had with the film was that it was a bit on the repetitive side once Dennis starts working for Rick. Another was that I thought Lynn would have pieced things together a little bit faster than she did.  Overall, though, 99 Homes is a tense two hours with some great performances.  In my movie standings for 2017 (link below) I'm placing it just below Split, a film that to me was even more intense.
 
2017 Movie Standings: https://letterboxd.com/mfrets78/list/matts-movie-standings-2017/