‘99 Homes’ is a terrific, scary look at real estate crisis

Starring Andrew Garfield, Michael Shannon and Laura Dern. Directed by Rahmin Bahrani.

Rated R for language including some sexual references, and a brief violent image. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 42 minutes.

Bottom line: A scary film about the housing crisis in 2010

Real estate can be a bloody business. A dirty, bloody and soul-sucking business. Especially in 2010, the year in which the housing crisis thriller “99 Homes” is set. It’s rich cinematic territory to be mined for drama: There’s the understandably emotional concept of home and hearth, the symbol of family and the American dream. In opposition, there are the banks and Realtors who only see numbers on a balance sheet and addresses on a map, commodities to be shuffled and traded, squeezed of every last possible dollar.

Director and co-writer Rahmin Bahrani stages the film in a way that foregrounds the horror inherent in the nasty business of foreclosures and evictions, with the vultures offering cash for keys circling the carrion of homeowners behind on payments. The first eviction we witness is hard to watch, the handheld camera lurking queasily in the background, a party to one of the worst days of this family’s life. The family in question is Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield), his son Connor (Noah Lomax) and mother (Laura Dern). Despite fighting the foreclosure in court, cops show up on his door with a shady real estate agent, Rick Carver (Michael Shannon), in tow to toss the family and their belongings on the lawn.

It’s rough stuff, stomach-turning, and Garfield surprises in the role of the single dad and working-class construction laborer driven to the brink. Backed into a corner, desperate just to survive, Dennis searches for any job he can get, and there’s not many. The one person offering him up cash for labor is Rick, and despite his aversion to the unfeeling real estate shark, Dennis has no choice. With his willingness to do any kind of work, he becomes Rick’s right hand man, diving deep into the very same business that threw his family on the street.

The film eventually drifts away from the more interesting, complicated, and difficult story of survival and individual choices, towards moralistic judgments on the honesty of the work, which is the less compelling question in this matter of life and death. Still, “99 Homes” is one of the scariest films you’ll see all year. Though it’s a period piece, it’s recent history, and there’s no reason why this might not happen again.