99 Homes

Now there can be little arguing that Andrew Garfield - even without the big hair - is a good looking man whom the camera very much likes. That does not, however, compensate for the fact that he is a a truly mediocre actor - and this film, sadly, displays that in spades. He ("Nash") is a single father living with him mum (Laura Dern) but he loses his job on a construction site. The bank forecloses and when the bailiffs arrive they are quite literally chucked out onto the street by the police and a rather avaricous, ruthless realtor "Rich Carver" (Michael Shannon). Desparate to get his family back home, he ends up doing odd jobs for his nemesis and gradually that expands until he is little better than a mini-me version; just as cruel and insensitive to an increasing number of victims of unemployment and bad luck. The story doesn't hang around, but I was puzzled by just how quickly the resolutely defiant Garfield character turned native, and the implausible haste with which this happened really robbed this of any sense of realism. Shannon is quite good as the malevolent exploiter, but there no real contributions from Dern and the ending is really quite predictably poor.