’99 Homes’: To the evictor go the spoils

For the first hour-plus of “99 Homes,” I felt I was watching a legit Best Picture contender — which made it all the more disappointing when the last act turned into overwrought, coincidence-dependent and semi-plausible melodrama.

The wheels don’t come off altogether, but the plot swerved after hitting some serious potholes.

It’s still an easy recommendation, with director and co-writer Ramin Bahrani delivering a provocative, visceral, sometimes heartbreakingly relevant drama/thriller centered on the financial crisis of the late 2000s and the subsequent housing collapse, which resulted in thousands upon thousands of American families forcibly evicted from their homes because they could no longer keep up with mortgage payments.

Andrew Garfield (a talented actor who was too old to play the teenager Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the latest reboot) does fine work as Dennis, a likable, earnest and hard-working construction jack-of-all trades who lives with his mother (Laura Dern) and his young son Connor (Noah Lomax) in the suburban Orlando house where Dennis grew up.

Dennis is hard at work on a new-home construction site when the foreman tells everyone to stop working immediately. The developer has pulled the plug on the project for lack of funds. In fact, they’ve all been working for free for the last couple of weeks. Nobody’s getting paid.

This is but the latest financial setback for Dennis, who has fallen months behind on the house payments (it’s a little surprising he has to make payments on the ranch house he grew up in, but there you have it) and wins no sympathy from a judge who rips through eviction hearings as if he’s rubber-stamping parking tickets.

Dennis is desperately looking for work and trying to buy some time when two cops and a real estate broker named Rick Carver (Michael Shannon) pound on the door, informing Dennis he no longer owns the home. In fact he’s now actually trespassing on property owned by Carver, and the family has a few minutes to gather what possessions they can and evacuate the premises.

This is the first of many eviction scenes, each one more devastating and difficult to sit through than the next. (In one instance, an elderly man without full control of his mental faculties sits on his front stoop, mumbling with almost childlike confusion about his plight. He literally has nowhere to go.)

Dennis, his mother and his son move into a cheap, rundown motel overflowing with other “evicteds.” When Dennis tells a neighbor this is just a short-term thing, she says, “Yeah, that’s what I said two years ago.”

Through a plot contrivance requiring a leap of faith, the desperate Dennis actually goes to work for Carver, who takes an immediate shine to Dennis and starts grooming him. It feels as if we’re watching “Wall Street,” but instead of high finance, it’s all about the ways (legal and otherwise) in which real estate agents and investors seize on others’ misfortunes to swoop in, offer a small bundle of cash for a foreclosed home, fix it up and flip it. At first Dennis is just doing home repairs and coming along for the ride, but it’s not long before HE’S the one showing up with the cops to kick families out of their homes.

“99 Homes” is a morality play, and the slick, opportunistic, intimidating and corrupt Carver is clearly deeply entrenched on the dark side — though he does make some legitimate points about how the government and the banks encouraged and fostered financially reckless behavior, and how many a homeowner eagerly seized the chance to buy big or to add unnecessary luxury additions to a home without a second thought as to the long-term consequences. Still, at times it feels as if Carver is the devil himself, feeding on human misery.

Shannon is a powerful force as an actor, but he’s such a menacing figure it’s a bit difficult to buy him in the scenes when he’s supposed to be seducing Dennis with his get-rich-quick patter, or throwing lavish, hedonistic parties.

Dennis is such a good guy, so loyal to family and friends, we stay with him and root for him even as his moral compass gets shakier and shakier, and his rationalizations become weaker and weaker. Garfield is at his best when Dennis regurgitates Carver’s line of B.S. with great passion but not necessarily full conviction.

At times Carver sounds like Donald Trump, e.g., “American doesn’t bail out the losers, it bails out the winners.” That he’s speaking the truth makes his words all the more chilling. By the time Dennis is no longer blinded by “the green skies ahead,” as Carver puts it, he might be past the point of redemption.

Now a return to the disappointing news. In the last several scenes, “99 Homes” changes tones, unconvincingly. It’s almost as if we’re watching a different movie — one not nearly as sharp and original.

That disappointment noted, some of the early scenes are striking and unforgettable.

“Don’t get emotional about real estate,” says Rick Carver.

But who doesn’t?

[s3r star=3/4]

Broad Green Pictures presents a film directed by Ramin Bahrani and written by Bahrani and Bahareh Azimi. Running time: 112 minutes. Rated R (for language including some sexual references, and a brief violent image). Opens Friday at local theaters.