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99 Homes review – chillingly topical eviction drama

Michael Shannon is lip-smackingly good as a reptilian real-estate broker forcing hard-up homeowners on to the street

I t so happens that this film gets its release here just as high-risk, high-yield mortgage bonds are making a cheeky comeback in the US. The name has been changed from “sub-prime” to “non-prime”. There are higher safeguards, reportedly, although that new prefix weirdly makes it sound like fewer. So 99 Homes coincides with the financial world’s Windscale/Sellafield moment.

It first appeared at last year’s Venice film festival but it gripped me just as much on a second viewing – a piercing comment on the toxic-loan slump and the bailout bonanza that appears to underline Milton Friedman’s immortal words: socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the rest. Ramin Bahrani – who directed Goodbye Solo (2008) and Man Push Cart (2005) – has created a middle-class nightmare driven by the powerful engine of shame: the shame of losing your home and the shame of then having to work for the person who took it away.

Michael Shannon gives a lip-smackingly good performance as Rick Carver, a predatory real-estate broker in Florida; he is as dead-eyed as the local alligators which, as he admiringly comments, never sleep. Carver smokes an e-cigarette, and its sinister blue glow is never far from his lips: increasingly the sign of a smarmy screen villain.

He is the court-appointed agent for houses that have been repossessed by the bank, because the wretched debtors (for whom Carver has nothing but contempt) could not keep up with the payments on risky loans. Backed up by armed officers from the sheriff’s department, Carver supervises that unwatchably horrible moment when these people and their families are ordered out of their houses and their belongings piled up on the front lawn in front of the neighbours.

Carver enjoys a rich harvest of misery, taking a juicy cut from the eventual repo sale which, although a bargain, will be generally more than the loan sum. Everybody wins, apart from the poor homeowners whose rash borrowings created this carrion opportunity in the first place. Carver is armed because, at the moment of eviction, those devastated residents have a habit of brandishing their own guns, often turning their weapons on themselves in an ecstasy of self-hate and despair. The movie opens with Carver cruising gator-like through a grisly scene of carnage.

One of his victims is Dennis, played by Andrew Garfield , a hardworking carpenter and builder: he is a single dad who lives with his son Connor (Noah Lomax) and his mother Lynn (Laura Dern). Dennis falls behind with his debt repayments, and duly gets the treatment from Carver and has to move into a grim motel, sharing a room with his mother and boy. But then a twist of fate means that Carver himself needs a willing builder to work on a particularly horrible job.

Swallowing his pride and self-respect, Dennis offers to work for Carver and something in his mixture of desperation and willing competence compels Carver to like him. He winds up making poor Dennis his favourite employee and confidant: the dependable guy who can execute all the illegal scams he has going for bilking the bank for phoney repairs and fraudulent fees.

Garfield’s performance shows that Dennis, perhaps like a Vichy French official coming to work with the Nazi occupier, forces himself to like and even admire Carver, to throw himself into the whole horrible business, almost to brazen out his humiliation and cauterise his own despair.

Carver has his own compulsion to school Dennis (a little like Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke in the cop drama Training Day), driving him around the quietly desperate neighbourhoods, showing him how to spot the opportunities for profit in all the badly tended and tatty houses. He insists Dennis must “pop his cherry” by having to supervise an eviction himself, and really earn his money. There is something deeply horrible in way the habits of gentility persist: the evictees and evictors have a grimly insincere habit of addressing each other as “sir”.

Watching this movie for a second time, I wonder if writer-director Bahrani did not perhaps originally intend Laura Dern’s role to be that of a wife; interestingly, the script would not need to be changed much for this to make narrative sense and she seems in one scene to have a say in what happens to Connor that would be more likely to come from an outraged spouse. But the set-up, as it stands, has a tough plausibility. It’s a compelling and relevant picture, with terrific performances from Shannon and Garfield.

• Drama films
• Peter Bradshaw's film of the week
• US mortgages
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Movie Review: 99 Homes (2014)

• Roberto Montiel
• Movie Reviews
• No responses
• --> February 28, 2016

Ok, so this means not to be a partisan review, OK? Yes, it means to broach its subject from a reasonable, logical standpoint. Yes, it in no way wills to oversee the bear gut and occasional sentimentality of the film it sets to look at. Yes, it wants to talk about current issues while taking the film as the vehicle it is. Yet it is aware, and I am just as well, that a logical and reasonable approach does sound a lot like partisanship nowadays — but that has nothing to do with the original intent of wanting to think things through. Hope this you can do with me.

Let me start by praising the film’s timing: 99 Homes is an extraordinarily relevant picture in that it is immensely timely. This is a story of greed and what it takes to be successful in the one arena in which the person who’s today’s incarnation of this doctrine made his fortune first and foremost: Real Estate — the person whose name I shall spare for when it’s three times spelled he wins another point in the polls.

But back to Real Estate: Real $tate. 99 Homes digs into the real meaning of this practice that started as a concept and is now closely associated with a curse for a great fraction of the American people after the housing business bubbled, boomed and blew at everyone’s faces in 2008. What Real $tate $tands for is raw capitalism, trafficking with the impossible, with land and buildings affixed in the ground, which rendered these places as ephemeral as they were expendable, taking back the estate to its original being as a state, something that shall pass as moments pass: Just a state of mind. Having a home is just a state of mind. Having a roof over your head is just a state of mind, the current state of affairs that might change at any time . . . particularly if you didn’t have the means to acquire it in the first place.

Credit, the backbone of capitalism as we know it and of free market as we want to know it, is not based on trust when looked from this angle; a credit is actually an opened opportunity for people to acquire more than they can get on the implicit promise that they’ll be able to pay should their current state of affairs doesn’t dare to change, which, in a volatile market (the current market), is nothing short of a long shot. And it is upon these potential failures that real estate brokers found a goldmine in the housing crisis that by 2009 was producing more homeless people than hurricanes and earthquakes combined: The best possible place for real estate moguls to grow their fortunes and for real estate upstarts to start theirs. I don’t know about you, but real estate mogul sounds a lot like a boogey man to me, like small town goblin or little village ghoul, one of whom appears in this film as the perfect mentor for a young mentee who has just lost his home.

Rick Carver (a hypnotically despicable Michael Shannon, “ Man of Steel ”) is looking at the dead body of a man who has just blown his brains out as the result of the former evicting the latter from his home. The body is the movie’s first shot, which quickly pans to Carver’s annoyed face, knowing the extra time this will take in his already tight schedule of kicking people off their houses. This is how we meet Dennis Nash (a heartwarmingly disappointing Andrew Garfield, “ The Amazing Spider-Man ”) who, in court, loses his case in less than 30 seconds and thinks he has 30 days to appeal the judge’s decision, when it turned out he had less than 15 hours to vacate his house. Living with his mom, Lynn (a delightfully righteous Laura Dern, “ Wild ”), and his son, Connor (a complexly innocent Noah Lomax, “ Playing for Keeps ”), Dennis has taken the hard responsibilities of his household as a young single father. Recently laid off without payment from his work in construction, he finds himself losing yet another short battle against the absurdity he’s living and kicked off from his home by the cold-blooded e-smoker Carver — with the law on his side (having used a real Sheriff for these sequences provides them with a veracity that makes them at some points almost unwatchable).

After moving to a hotel and unsuccessfully trying to find a gig, Dennis finds himself working for Carver, who takes him under his squama as his new challenge and protégée; where Rick sees promise, he seizes the irresistible inducement of corrupting a constitutionally good person, thus proving to himself that greed is there for everyone who wants to seize it. This is the arc that makes 99 Homes worth watching. Like Gordon Gekko did with Bud Fox, we find Carver slowly carving in Dennis’ psyche the marks that made him realize that, in a free market, it is all about you or them. Watching Dennis’ gradual immersion into the world that first beat him up, going from evictee to evictor, marks a worthy retelling of what “Wall Street” meant in the 1980’s: The real definition of a broker.

The rise of the broker in the 1980’s saw the slow decline of the kingpin. This was the ultimate gangster, the legit $treet-god, the tidied thief clothed as an immaculate impresario. What the remarkable and recent “ The Big Short ” showed at a larger, almost abstract, scale, 99 Homes illuminates from within, centering on two characters rivaling, competing and despising themselves while learning from each other. One, how to become wealthy while waiving his scruples, and the other how to prove that everyone is a potential asshole should they have the correct role-model. And all these director Ramin Bahrani does bringing formal undertones from Werner Herzog’s dazzling revisiting of Abel Ferrara’s classic of petit abuse of power and corruption “Bad Lieutenant.” Particularly, this can be noted in the use of saturated light by cinematographer Bobby Bukowski (whose work with daylight has always been a sort of watermark). Also, although the movie is set in Orlando, Florida (one of the four States in the US that suffered most acutely from the housing bubble), a substantial amount of the film was shot in New Orleans — a place wherein the sun never lies, only the night does in days of carnival.

99 Homes gets into the entrails of the new broker, the one for whom there is no difference between a house and a home, for whom, as a matter of fact, there is no difference between a house and a big building — a box. The difference between a priceless place and a vacated box is the one a real e$tater cannot afford to make. Vacated when acquired, priceless when is sold, a house represents nothing but potential profit: It doesn’t exist anywhere but in the grand-scale of big business. “Large boxes, small boxes,” tells Carver to Nash at a booze-induced confession time, “what really matters is what you’ve got” — a statement equivalent to “what’s really important is who’ve you fucked”: An economy that’s been built on taking advantage of other people’s mishaps, of other people’s crises.

This is, according to Nobel laureate economist (and Ronald Reagan’s and Margaret Thatcher’s favorite pornographer) Milton Friedman, what made America great (Reagan’s original mandate, remember?): Greed. This is, basically, how our Real $tate mogul promises to make it great again, by bringing greed back on — in full force.

Bahrani’s look at American capitalism (as has been his look at American society from the standpoint of minorities) is both accurate and angry. He looks and evaluates (possibly the latter harming a little the big-picture-take of his project) the way in which a system that transformed greed into a virtue (for, as Friedman says, there is no society that is not originally ran by greed) corrodes the individual to the point of making it the only possible center of a person’s life, since stepping over other people could be considered to be the best quality of a truly ambitious character. When the only reward for hard-work is poverty (as is the case for an astronomic amount of blue-collar Americans), corruption and scam seem like primal survival skills. Such an economy, it’s worth pointing out, is not kept by the people who make, but rather moved by those who know what, when, where and from whom to take.

The greatest asset for the Friedmanite American (if you allow me the neologism) is their overwhelming individuality, which is often reflected in the great lengths to which their personalities grow (or rather bloat). But it is not so much a cult to the personality what these Friedmanites gain; it is, instead, a cult to this person’s achievements, which become their personality — if with achievement we understand net worth. A powerful personality is thus that which mirrors its accomplishments. America’s (US’s greed already marked in its Munronean demonym) favorite myth, the self-made man (yes, majorly a man), the one who overcomes the odds to win over the rest and rise a mogul, a ghoul that comes back and terrorizes losers to take all their possessions with them, is the uncontested model for all respectable blue-collared-Friednamites in love with the free market they all think one day will make them rich.

And this is precisely the divide we should be dreading already, particularly after knowing what it takes for the 99 to keep the 1’s lifestyle: A crash, a crisis, another crash, another crisis over which these number 1’s and 1 percenters will cash and profit. It’s no coincidence that the way in which Carver recognizes his future pupil’s potential is when Dennis is the only one who accepts to literally clean a load of shit for him. And this is where every obscene fortune starts for those infinitesimal number of people who weren’t born into a wealthy family: By cleaning shit for other, wealthy, very wealthy preferably, people. This latter are who actively seek and see opportunities in crises, and who, sometimes, as history doesn’t tire to show us, actively provoke them or, at the very least, allow them when they could’ve done otherwise.

99 Homes is, in this sense, a timely parable and a plucky thriller of what happens to a social and a political system that leans toward the economy as its main ethical barometer. For this is the kind of system that will continue to “bail out the winners,” as Carver asserts, while cashing on the losers, deep sunk inside their own anger. And here is where I cannot avoid but being reasonable and logical: If the world, or the US for that matter, is going to finally and openly accept and elect someone who polarizes the whole humanity into two categories, winners and losers, odds are that you, or someone for whom you care about, will be at the losing end of the stick. Now you go cast your ballot.

Tagged: con man , father , homeless , revenge , unemployment

Roberto is a PhD recipient in Philosophy and Postcolonial Literature.

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A recently unemployed single father struggles to get back his foreclosed home by working for the real estate broker who is the source of his frustration. A recently unemployed single father struggles to get back his foreclosed home by working for the real estate broker who is the source of his frustration. A recently unemployed single father struggles to get back his foreclosed home by working for the real estate broker who is the source of his frustration.

• Ramin Bahrani
• Bahareh Azimi
• Amir Naderi
• Andrew Garfield
• Michael Shannon
• 144 User reviews
• 202 Critic reviews
• 76 Metascore
• 12 wins & 24 nominations

• Dennis Nash

• Rick Carver

• Mr. William Freeman

• Officer Dudura
• (as Doug Griffin)

• Sheriff Anderon

• Sheriff Carl

• Crew Leader

• Connor Nash
• Alex Greene
• (as Alex Aristidis Perdikis)

• Frank Greene

• Lawyer Bailey

• Court Clerk

• (as Albert Bates)

• (as Jayson Smith)
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• Trivia Director Ramin Bahrani used a 24mm lens for close-ups of Andrew Garfield as it gave greater depth as to what was showing on his face.
• Goofs Simple admissions of guilt someone in a stressful situation is not going to cause the police to immediately arrest you. Nash was facing an armed man who clearly wasn't bent upon self injury or perhaps harming others. Even if he "admitted" his alleged guilt in a criminal matter, the police would have required more evidence (such as the event had actual occurred) before they could arrest him.

Rick Carver : Don't be soft. Do you think America give a flying rats ass about you or me? America doesn't bail out the losers. America was built by bailing out winners. By rigging a nation of the winners, for the winners, by the winners.

• Connections Featured in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Kristen Stewart/Michael Shannon/Cage the Elephant (2016)
• Soundtracks Loco Loco Written by Marlon Betancur Performed by Mr. Kapri Published by Edimusica USA Courtesy of Miami Records Inc. By arrangement with Ocean Park Music Group

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• Runtime 1 hour 52 minutes
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‘99 Moons’ Review: On-Again, Off-Again

Instead of an engaging erotic romance, the film delivers a dull narrative of two lovers caught in a cycle of getting together and falling apart.

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By Claire Shaffer

Good erotic films are built on an atmosphere of tension. Maybe it’s repressed desire, or a ticking clock imposed on an affair by external forces, or two people with fundamentally different identities coming together against all odds. Jan Gassmann’s “99 Moons” shoots for all three, and yet the tension hangs limply throughout its nearly two-hour running time.

The Swiss film, opening in theaters Friday, stars Valentina Di Pace and Dominik Fellmann as Bigna and Frank, characters representing opposites on a spectrum of sexual agency. Bigna, a young scientist trying to advance in her profession by planning a research study in Chile, is controlling to a fault, hooking up with anonymous men in masks to fulfill an elaborate sexual fantasy that the viewer is thrown into during the opening scene. Frank, a loner, weaves his way through hazy nightclubs in search of something that Gassmann never quite articulates. The two meet up through one of Bigna’s contrived escapades, after which Frank immediately bursts into tears. Bigna is confused, and so are we.

What follows is a dull, “When Harry Met Sally”-style narrative in which the protagonists pursue each other, get together, and break up over bizarre misunderstandings, before the film jumps forward in time and the cycle repeats itself. (The film’s title comes from this structure; their time apart is measured pretentiously in “moons.”) Gassmann clearly wants to explore the state of love and sexuality in the 2020s — there are more than a few passing parallels to Joachim Trier’s “ The Worst Person in the World ” — but he succeeds only in conveying the pathologies of two people who can’t figure out what they want from each other.

99 Moons Not rated. In German, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters.

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Alok 81892 783 days ago

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The soundtrack to Zach Braff's 2004 indie hit was as popular as the movie thanks to Natalie Portman's character declaring The Shins' "New Slang" to be life-changing. The album also includes songs by Iron & Wine, Coldplay, and Frou Frou.

8 Mile (Explicit Version)

Eminem's semi-autobiographical movie from 2002 gave us "Lose Yourself" along with tracks from Macy Gray, Jay-Z, and more. If you're into this one, be sure to check out Patti Cake$ as well.

Aimee Mann dominates the soundtrack to this 1999 film and she perfectly captures the mood of Paul Thomas Anderson's work. The album was certified gold (selling over 500,000 albums) and the track "Save Me" scored an Oscar nomination.

A '90s teen comedy without a killer soundtrack? As if!

Dangerous Minds

Come for Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise," and stay for the 11 other rap tracks that made this movie such a phenomenon in 1995.

Easy Rider (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

This one is a necessity for all classic rock lovers. The songs make you want to get out and ride on the open road, which is pretty much exactly what the movie is about. Mission accomplished!

Empire Records

A movie about working in a music store (remember those?) obviously requires a worthy soundtrack. Rex Manning is nowhere to be found.

Waiting to Exhale

So many divas on one album. Whitney, Aretha, Mary, Toni... just to name a few. Every track was written and produced by Babyface. There's not a dud in the bunch.

Curtis Mayfield's 1972 soundtrack to the blaxploitation film is a soul/funk classic. The album was so popular, it made more money than the film.

Dazed and Confused

This 1993 comedy offers a collection of '70s rock that's so jam-packed, they split it into two volumes . No disco balls here.

Dirty Dancing

If you've seen the movie, you probably tried "the lift" while listening to "(I've Had) The Time of My Life."

Bonus: Patrick Swayze isn't just one of the stars of the movie — he also contributed "She's Like the Wind" to the soundtrack.

Forrest Gump: The Soundtrack (2 CDs)

So many hits from the ‘60s packed into one movie. Joan Baez, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Elvis … they were introduced to a new generation through this Best Picture winner.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

T Bone Burnett put together a mix of bluegrass, country, gospel, blues, and folk for the soundtrack to his 2000 film from the Coen Brothers. It was clearly the recipe for success, considering the album went platinum eight times over.

American Graffiti

This early-'60s nostalgia film released in 1973 features songs by popular doo-wop and rock artists including Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. It's everything a baby boomer could ever want.

Yes, the soundtrack for a movie starring Looney Tunes characters is that good. Why didn't the Quad City DJs ever do more?

Black Panther

Kendrick Lamar curated the songs that helped propel this film from just another entry in the Marvel cinematic universe to one of the best. Wakanda forever (and ever!).

The title track by Kenny Loggins is a toe-tapper for sure, but Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out For a Hero" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" by Deniece Williams take this album to the next level.

The Big Chill

Motown made a comeback after the release of this 1983 film about a group of friends who reunite to mourn the death of one of their own. They reminisce about their lives set to the music of Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, and more.

Music From Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby

Beyoncé and Fergie may not have been around during the Jazz Age, but this concept album works somehow. Bey's cover of Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" and Lana Del Rey's "Young and Beautiful" is all the convincing you'll need.

Purple Rain

It's Prince. No explanation needed.

Saturday Night Fever

Disco might be dead now, but there's no denying the magic of the Bee Gees.

A Star Is Born

It may not be the first time this story has been done, but Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper make sweet music together.

The Graduate

Here’s to Mrs. Robinson and to the rest of this Simon & Garfunkel album. This one sets the bar for full soundtracks performed by a single artist.

The Bodyguard

There’s a reason this is the best-selling movie soundtrack of all time. That reason is the unparalleled voice of Whitney Houston. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, listening to “I Will Always Love You” or “I Have Nothing” will reduce you to tears.

Pulp Fiction: Music From The Motion Picture (CD)

Quentin Tarantino takes his soundtracks as seriously as he does his filmmaking. This album is just as much of a ‘90s staple as the film with tracks including Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man” and Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.”

These were popular songs long before the film ever came out, and yet it’s impossible not to think of it whenever they’re played.

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99 Homes Reviews

Say this for 99 Homes: It contains arguably the most truthful snatch of dialogue to be found in any movie released so far in 2015.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 12, 2023

99 Homes really belongs to Shannon, offering a portrait of a man who has long since stopped asking about the ethical implications of his actions and, only after a few drinks, hints that he laments having to wear a concealed weapon.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 12, 2022

Features a gut wrenching eviction scene that establishes the tone for the rest of the film. It's the stuff they don't show you on reality flip shows, the personal, tragic side of foreclosure.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 4, 2021

99 Homes is not just a well-made film, it's a film that should shake the very foundation of the subject it deals with.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 31, 2021

There are contrivances to Bahrani's plotting, but they all manage to build in a satisfactory manner. The main goal here is to watch a man become what he hates: not out of want, but out of necessity.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 21, 2021

Shannon is superb at being contemptible and intense, tossing about vein-popping speeches that attempt to justify his immoral and regularly illegal approach to making money.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Dec 4, 2020

Bahrani's most effective film to date, 99 Homes features a particularly vibrant Michael Shannon engaged in a modern perversion of American greed.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 13, 2020

Bahrani effectively and systematically portrays the awful things people will do, betraying themselves and others, faced with impossible economic conditions.

Full Review | Aug 13, 2020

The film is not a pleasant one to watch, but it is absolutely electrifying on all fronts.

Full Review | Apr 7, 2020

As comes as no surprise, writer/director Ramin Bahrani breaks down the door of our collective moral compass with this cat and mouse thriller of corruption versus conscience.

Full Review | Nov 29, 2019

It's generally positive, but it is sad that it remains just an estimable proposal when it sometimes shows that it could have been much more than that. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jul 19, 2019

Its great cast and effective drama, at least for the majority of the film, are undeniably compelling.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | May 24, 2019

Bahrani's vérité gets somewhat lost among his amplified quasi-thrillery plot beats, but this low-key master continues to grow with a wider scope and commanding actors. Don't miss 99 Homes.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 4, 2019

While 99 Homes does suffer from some contrived plotting and character development, Bahrani has also produced a timely portrait of the human cost of the housing crisis.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 6, 2019

99 HOMES features award-worthy performances, an original premise that speaks so much truth, but contains a climax that is hard to like, leaving you with a bad taste in your mouth.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Mar 30, 2019

Directed and co-written by Ramin Bahrani, 99 Homes is a dreary story worth telling, unfolding through realistic, powerful acting all around.

Full Review | Jan 25, 2019

Anchored by strong work from Michael Shannon, it's a fascinating examination of the fragile nature of a home owner's market, but it also starts to run out of steam in the second half.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jan 18, 2019

As a movie with some lessons for us, 99 HOMES may not be the most transcendent, but it is practical, useful and fairly disturbing.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Dec 7, 2018

At once realistic and fabulistic, 99 Homes is Bahrani's best film.

Full Review | Aug 23, 2018

Tight as a drum writing and terrific performances from Garfield, Shannon, plus Laura Dern as Dennis's mother, represent a solid investment of your time.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2018

‘Civil War’: What you need to know about A24’s dystopian action movie

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A24’s “Civil War,” the latest film from “Ex Machina” and “Men” director Alex Garland , imagines a third-term president ruling over a divided America and follows the journalists driving through the war-torn countryside on a mission to land his final interview. The movie is pulse-pounding and contemplative, as the characters tumble from one tense encounter to the next and ruminate on the nature of journalism and wartime photography.

In his review of the film, The Times’ Joshua Rothkopf wrote, “‘Civil War’ will remind you of the great combat films , the nauseating artillery ping of ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ the surreal up-is-down journey of ‘Apocalypse Now.’ It also bears a pronounced connection to the 2002 zombie road movie scripted by its writer-director Alex Garland, ‘28 Days Later.’”

Starring Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny as photojournalists, alongside Wagner Moura and Stephen McKinley Henderson (and a scene-stealing, nerve-racking Jesse Plemons ), the film carries a reported production budget of $50 million and has already started to recoup the costs at the box office, earning $25.7 million in ticket sales in its first weekend in North America.

“Civil War” has also been a discourse juggernaut. Conversation on social media has focused on the lack of context given for the conflict at the heart of the film. In a recent column, The Times’ Mary McNamara wrote that “forcing the very real political divisions that plague this nation into vague subtext doesn’t even serve the purported pro-journalism nature of ‘Civil War.’”

Catch up on our coverage of the film below.

Review: ‘Civil War’ shows an America long past unraveling, which makes it necessary

Starring Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny as journalists chronicling a war at home, writer-director Alex Garland’s action film provokes a shudder of recognition.

April 11, 2024

Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny on the nightmarish ‘Civil War’: ‘No nation is immune’

Writer-director Alex Garland’s controversy-courting political fable about a violently divided America brings together two generation-defining actors.

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Inside the most unnerving scene in ‘Civil War’: ‘It was a stunning bit of good luck’

With a deeply disturbing turn by Jesse Plemons, one scene in “Civil War” encapsulates the film’s combustible political balancing act. It almost didn’t happen.

April 12, 2024

In trying to hedge its politics, ‘Civil War’ betrays its characters — and the audience

Alex Garland’s powerful war drama is ostensibly a tribute to the fourth estate. But the film is absent the examination of causes and consequences central to great journalism.

April 15, 2024

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After ‘Civil War’ and mainstream success, can indie darling A24 keep its cool?

‘Civil War’s’ overperformance at the box office proves that A24’s brand is strong enough to open a divisive $50-million about a dystopian America.

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‘Civil War’ unites moviegoers at box office

Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War,’ about a strife-torn, near-future America, knocked ‘Godzilla x Kong’ from the top spot at the weekend box office.

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‘Civil War’ Is an Amazing Film of Imagination and Cinematic Verve

I don’t remember any movie as all-consumingly hopeless and depressing..

In the confusion and chaos of today’s polarized political landscape—a time of violence, crime, insurrection and the rape of traditional human values—the plight of a free press is another threat to Democracy that isn’t explored as often as it should be. Director-screenwriter Alex Garland ’s Civil War is a Doomsday parable that makes up for lost time.

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As a cautionary tale about America’s inevitable self-destruction, the relentless cynicism of its narrative is often preposterous, but as a visionary look at the horrors that lie ahead for a great country on the rocks—and what America has done to itself already—this is one of the most harrowing yet exhilarating science-fiction epics ever made. I also find it perturbing to realize a film about everything wrong with America was made by a British director, not an American.  

The setting is a dystopian, post-apocalyptic, not-too-distant future in which the world is divided between left-wing liberals and right-wing conservatives, the principles of truth and integrity in journalism are all but extinct, and covering the news is so dangerous that reporters are forced to wear helmets for self-protection. In what passes for a minuscule plot, excellent but often under-appreciated actor Kirsten Dunst plays Lee Smith, a fearless, respected photojournalist inspired by the great World War Two icon Lee Miller , the first woman to enter the Nazi bunker after the surrender of the Third Reich, who photographed herself naked in Adolf Hitler ’s bathtub for Life magazine. On assignment, she tries to make sense of the American predicament and responsibly, accurately and truthfully report the news. The film begins when she narrowly escapes a violent bombing that kills piles of people in the streets of New York. From there, she launches an 857-mile trip to D.C. to shoot what may be the last photograph of the president of the U.S., who has become the victim of a murderous mob that holds him prisoner in the White House. She’s accompanied by a small group of fellow reporters, including Jessie ( Cailee Spaeny ), a worshipful rookie girl who longs to be a carbon of Lee, Joel ( Wagner Moura ), a gung-ho seeker of scoops for Reuters who risks his life repeatedly to be in the center of the action, and Sammy (Broadway veteran Stephen Mckinley Henderson ), an aging survivor of  “what’s left of the New York Times.” The arduous trajectory in Alex Garland’s script serves to guide the press (and the audience) through barren, blistered mine fields of war, across the deserted highways of abandoned cars and empty football stadiums converted to settings for killing sprees and makeshift graveyards for masses of discarded corpses. There’s one ghastly sequence with a sadistic racist maniac who massacres his victims with blasts of artillery fire, while wearing red sunglasses. 

If you can keep your eyes open through the imagined depiction of the colorful horrors of the American future, you will never be bored: airstrikes aimed at innocent citizens, suicide bombers waving the stars and stripes, an amusement park called Winter Wonderland with images from the past, including a dead Santa Claus in the middle of a field—exactly like the one I saw in a front yard on a grisly tour of the ruins in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. There’s so much going on and so much devastation to watch in Civil War that it’s hard to know who is fighting whom. In the chaos, everybody is at war with everybody else. The film carefully avoids mentioning the names of any actual current politicians in either house of Congress, as well as the political parties on either side of the aisle, but once the press miraculously reaches Washington, they find the remains of the capital of Democracy in combat streets full of tanks, soldiers on fire, cherished monuments destroyed, and a sitting president in his third term who has disbanded the FBI and raped the U.S. Constitution, so you can fill in the blanks. 

Like it or loathe it, Civil War is a film of savage imagery and motiveless carnage, compromised ideals and endless anarchy. Nihilism on film may be all the rage, but I don’t remember any movie as all-consumingly hopeless and depressing. It is the conviction of Alex Garland that if things continue in the political direction we’re experiencing now, then no one will be safe from annihilation in the next decade, with the free press in the middle, trying to record what they witness in the line of fire while the rest of us die. Look at it as a movie for posterity, and it becomes a worthwhile movie to savor, but nothing else—and you’ll survive. Admire Civil War as an amazing film of imagination and cinematic verve but nothing else—and you will, too.

• SEE ALSO : ‘Under the Bridge’ Review: A Miniseries That Interrogates the True Crime Genre

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One of the most controversial sci-fi movies of 2024 lands on netflix today.

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Rebel Moon Part 2 — The Scargiver

Zach Snyder’s Rebel Moon Part 1: Child Of Fire released last December to pretty lousy reviews and a mixed audience reaction. I thought the space opera was a mixed bag —at once wildly derivative and filled with all of Snyder’s worst habits as a filmmaker, but more entertaining than I expected.

Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver lands on Netflix today, and maybe that will help us determine what we think of the 2-part film as a whole better. Here’s the trailer:

In the first part of Rebel Moon, we were introduced to the heroes and villains of our tale. It’s basically a space opera version of Seven Samurai, in which a massive imperial army descends upon a small space outpost demanding grain. One mysterious resident of this town, Kora (Sofia Boutella), decides that they should fight back and goes on a quest to gather a group of rag-tag heroes to help her fight. The Magnificent Seven are gathered across the first film, with some fights and conflicts along the way, and by the end they return to face down the overwhelming forces of their true enemy.

See my full weekend streaming guide right here :

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Rebel Moon was a bit all over the place. It needed more time to help establish character and the relationships between the various heroes Kora rounds up, but the pacing was all over the place. It felt both too long and too rushed somehow, and I think we probably needed a trilogy to really flesh things out enough without relying on big exposition dumps—though maybe less use of slow-motion would have freed up enough time for some more engaging dialogue.

Of course, Zach Snyder’s hard-core fans loved the movie and I’ve seen plenty of pushback even though my review was a lot more positive than most other critics. Despite my many problems with Rebel Moon, I still have hope that this could turn into a fun—if silly—space opera franchise, though I have doubts Netflix will continue to bankroll these movies if they continue to bomb.

Now Part 2 is out, and I’ve watched it—and somehow it’s taken all the worst bits from Part 1 and made them even more egregious, including Snyder’s bizarre obsession with slow-motion, which is overused to the point of self-parody. In my review I write :

Tedious, derivative and implausible beyond belief, Rebel Moon Part 2 makes Zack Snyder's first film in this preposterous space opera franchise look great by comparison. If nothing else, that’s a remarkable feat.

What do you think of Rebel Moon ? Let me know on Twitter and Facebook .

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, tiff 2014: "99 homes".

With “99 Homes,” Ramin Bahrani has taken the subject of a social issue drama and structured it like a thriller. The film hums along, perfectly paced and driven by great performances all around. It’s also something of a call to arms, an urgent instruction to pay closer to attention to one of the most defining issues of our time: economic inequality. Seeing Bahrani’s film mere hours after the premiere of Oren Moverman ’s “Time Out of Mind,” a Richard Gere film about the fact that homeless people have become so marginalized that they barely exist in the social consciousness, it struck me that we could be on the cusp of a wave of films about the unfair world in which we live. As Bahrani said in his interview, through scratchy voice due to illness, “ There’s something wrong in this world, and we have to reassess. ” There are times in “99 Homes” when you’ll want to look away, when your gut will turn from the human pain on-screen. Don’t look away. Reassess.

There are people watching their belongings go from the home in which they raised their children to the curb where their garbage is picked up while you read this review. Bahrani uses the housing crisis as a starting point for a phenomenal piece of character-driven storytelling. Dennis Nash ( Andrew Garfield , who hasn’t been this good since “ The Social Network ”) lives with his son and mother (the eternally great Laura Dern ) in a modest Orlando home. He has missed a few payments, although he tries to argue with the judge at his hearing that it was a miscommunication with the bank and not an actual economic shortfall. It doesn’t matter. Dennis is getting evicted. And when you’re getting evicted in Orlando, you’re likely to cross paths with Richard Carver ( Michael Shannon ).

Carver owns a realty company that feeds on the economic crisis. As he says, he’s made more money after the crash than before it. He’s the last person you want to see at your door. He’ll usually be there with a couple cops, give you a few minutes to take what you need from your home, get his guys to lug the rest out to the curb and then take ownership through foreclosure. And that’s only one part of Carver’s business. He runs scams all over town: stealing air conditioners from foreclosed homes so the government will pay him to replace them (with another stolen air conditioner), using a “Cash For Keys” system to grift from the government and much more. All of Carver’s ventures have made him very rich, and that wealth has come from the economic disparity and corruption that have forever damaged this country.

Dennis moves into a seedy motel with his mom and child, desperate to find a way to get his home back. So desperate that he ends up working for Carver. We become a part of the system that has destroyed us. Think about that. How many people have been fired by companies that they, in whatever way, contribute to the success of as consumers? Bahrani’s structure is a brilliant one, in that it’s impossible to morally judge a man who is trying to keep his mother and son safe, and yet there’s a sense of unease throughout Dennis’ journey, like watching a kid join the mob after it’s destroyed his life.

“99 Homes” plays like a thriller but it’s grounded by the three-dimensional performances from Garfield and Shannon. The former finds the emotional rhythm of a man without many options left. As so many people in this world are, Dennis is forced into a situation he didn’t create and can’t avoid. And you can see the inner turmoil in Garfield’s eyes. There’s less of a moral center in Shannon’s fantastic work as Carver, but that’s what makes him so interesting. Shannon wisely avoids turning him into a cartoon, even finding the realism in this real estate shark. He's using a corrupt system to his advantage. When he says, “Only 1 in 100 is going to get on that Ark, son,” who can blame him for trying to keep from drowning? Like all great socially conscious films, “99 Homes” doesn’t portray its issues in black and white, and Garfield and Shannon’s nuanced work is what makes that gray area effective.

“99 Homes” pulses with energy from the very beginning. Bahrani is always keeping his camera moving, timed to an unsettling electronic-driven score. It is his most confidently made film. It doesn’t feel like there’s a beat, a shot, an angle that’s out of place or unconsidered. And yet that streamlined approach to filmmaking never corrupts Bahrani’s ability to capture the human condition, as he did so completely in films like “ Chop Shop ” and “ Goodbye Solo .” The evictions of “99 Homes” are gut-wrenching. I found myself, especially during the first one of Dennis and his family, remarkably uncomfortable. I wanted to turn away. I felt myself squirming in my chair. But I thought of Bahrani’s words and realized that this righteously angry film should be tough to watch and emotionally difficult.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Titanic [4K UHD]

• Prime Video $4.29 — $18.39
• Blu-ray $12.96

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Experience James Cameron’s Titanic, the global box office phenomenon and winner of 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture (1997). Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet light up the screen in this unforgettable tale of forbidden love and courage set against the ill-fated maiden voyage of the “unsinkable” Titanic.

Over 15 hours of SPECIAL FEATURES including…

· NEW - TITANIC: Stories From The Heart

Director James Cameron, producer Jon Landau and star Kate Winslet share memories and favorite moments, and recount the challenges of making the greatest love story in cinema history. Go back in time with film clips, photos and behind-the-scenes moments.

· NEW - TITANIC: 25 YEARS LATER WITH JAMES CAMERON

James Cameron explores the enduring myths and mysteries of the shipwreck, and mounts tests to see whether Jack could have fit on that raft and survived.

· NEW - Fan Poster Gallery

Product Description

Experience James Cameron’s Titanic, the global box office phenomenon and winner of 11 Academy Awards® including Best Picture (1997)*. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet light up the screen in this unforgettable tale of forbidden love and courage set against the ill-fated maiden voyage of the "unsinkable" Titanic.

Product details

• Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 1.78:1
• MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
• Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.78 x 5.43 x 0.63 inches; 4.16 ounces
• Director ‏ : ‎ James Cameron
• Media Format ‏ : ‎ 4K
• Release date ‏ : ‎ December 5, 2023
• Actors ‏ : ‎ Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet
• Dubbed: ‏ : ‎ French, Spanish
• Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English, French, Spanish
• Language ‏ : ‎ English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Studio ‏ : ‎ PARAMOUNT
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CK3ZWT7X
• Country of Origin ‏ : ‎ USA
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 2
• #33 in Drama Blu-ray Discs
• #35 in Action & Adventure Blu-ray Discs

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'Downtown Owl': '80s period piece doesn't know what it wants to be

Co-director lily rabe stars as small-town newcomer in disjointed adaptation of chuck klosterman novel..

Naomi (Vanessa Hudgens, left) invites newcomer Julia (Lily Rabe) out to the bar in “Downtown Owl.”

Stage 6 Films

Let’s talk about the high school football team in the disjointed and tonally uncertain Americana period piece “Downtown Owl,” an adaptation of the 2008 debut novel by the cool and acclaimed pop culture essayist and author Chuck Klosterman.

By my count, we see a maximum of eight players in a practice sequence, even fewer in a locker room scene. Granted, we’re not talking about “Friday Night Lights” or “Rudy” here — this isn’t a football movie — but even for a low-budget, indie-style film, it’s not that much of a financial strain to at least put enough extras in uniforms to reasonably approximate an actual team. The same goes for the high school classroom and hallway scenes here; it appears there are only a handful of students, only a couple of teachers.

All right, let’s say co-directors (and real-life partners) Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater are going for something approximating a filmed stage play, with dialogue ranging from gritty and grounded to self-consciously stylized. Still, whether it’s the depictions of high school life that are so unrealistic they take us out of the movie, or the inconsistent and frequently off-putting actions by Rabe’s Julia in the lead role, “Downtown Owl” never quite seems fully confident of its identity and purpose. It’s an occasionally interesting, well-acted mess.

The story kicks off with Julia arriving in the cloistered town of Owl, North Dakota, in 1983, where she has taken a temporary teaching job while her husband finishes his graduate thesis. Julia is immediately befriended by the boisterous and obnoxious Naomi (an overacting Vanessa Hudgens, affecting an accent that makes it sound like she watched “Fargo” one too many times), who has little trouble cajoling Julia into getting hammered nearly every night. (They’re usually the only women at the bar, which is populated by dull men with nicknames such as Dog Lover, Bull Calf, The Flaw Brothers and Brother Killer.)

Nearly every character in “Downtown Owl” is more of a type or a symbol. Old-timey townie Horace (the great Ed Harris) is the moral conscience of the town, who lives a life of overwhelming sadness while caring for his comatose wife. Bison rancher Vance (Henry Golding), a rather dim and uninteresting fellow, is still treated like a hero due to one unlikely play he made as a backup quarterback years ago. Sensitive football player Mitch (August Blanco Rosenstein), who doesn’t even like football, probably knows he’ll be going through a Vince state and then the Horace stage of his life in this nowhere town. We get it.

The filmmakers also fumble an absolutely cringe-y subplot about the football coach (Finn Wittrock) impregnating a student (Arden Michalec). Through all of this, Rabe plays it to the rafters, turning Julia into a mostly unlikable and at times pathetically misguided trainwreck who keeps making bad decisions. When Julia tries to offer guidance to a troubled student, the reply comes: “No offense, but if I needed to talk to an adult, why would I talk to you?”

• Sublime ‘How I Learned What I Learned’ delves into life lessons that shaped writer August Wilson

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Movie Reviews

'the beast' jumps from 1910, to 2014, to 2044, tracking fear through the ages.

Justin Chang

Gabrielle and Louis (Léa Seydoux and George MacKay) meet in 1910 Paris, 2014 Los Angeles and again in 2044 in The Beast . Carole Bethuel/Kinology hide caption

Gabrielle and Louis (Léa Seydoux and George MacKay) meet in 1910 Paris, 2014 Los Angeles and again in 2044 in The Beast .

There's no easy way to sum up the work of the brilliant and maddening French writer-director Bertrand Bonello. In recent years, he's made a zombie thriller rooted in Haitian voodoo lore and an unconventional biopic of Yves Saint-Laurent. His most controversial title, Nocturama , is a hangout movie about a group of French youth carrying out terrorist attacks around Paris. Bonello's films have a unique way of blurring the intellectual and the aesthetic: Their gorgeous surfaces are often loaded with troubling and provocative ideas.

His latest movie is called The Beast , and it's one of the best and least classifiable things he's ever done. It's a wildly original adaptation of the 1903 Henry James novella The Beast in the Jungle , about a man who dwells in a constant state of fear.

James' story is a cautionary tale about the dangers of being too cautious, of not embracing life and love to the fullest. Bonello takes this premise and spins it in several unexpected directions. First, he recasts the hesitant protagonist as a woman, named Gabrielle, played by the wonderful Léa Seydoux. Then he positions her in three different stories, set in three time frames, and suffused with elements of horror, mystery and science fiction. It's easier to follow than it sounds: Even when it's not entirely clear where or when we are, Bonello's filmmaking is so hypnotic, and Seydoux's performance so subtly mesmerizing, that you can't help getting caught up in the flow.

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The first story is the one that most closely resembles the novella. It's 1910, and Gabrielle is a renowned pianist who has a run-in at a Paris salon with a gentleman named Louis, played by the English actor George MacKay. In a setup that evokes the confounding 1961 classic Last Year at Marienbad , Gabrielle and Louis seem to vaguely recall having met before. There's a clear attraction between them, but Gabrielle, who's married, resists pursuing it. Her restraint will cost her in a climax that coincides with a real-life Parisian catastrophe, the Great Flood of 1910.

'Saint Laurent,' A Radical Man Of Fashion

The second story takes place in Los Angeles in 2014, and has some of the eerie menace of David Lynch 's masterpiece Mulholland Dr. Gabrielle is now an aspiring model and actor who's been housesitting for a wealthy Angeleno. Rattled by a violent earthquake one morning, she steps outside and runs into Louis, who's now a deeply disturbed incel who's been posting misogynist video rants online.

MacKay is utterly terrifying as this Louis, who's modeled on a man who killed six people in 2014 in Isla Vista, Calif. What makes this second segment so chilling is that, unlike in the novella, the protagonist's fear is not unfounded. The beast stalking Gabrielle is all too real.

The third story is the most elusive and intriguing. It's set in 2044, when the world is run by AI. Gabrielle plays a human who, to join the work force, must undergo a process that will rid her of her emotions. This segment, with its shades of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , explains the framework of the entire movie: It turns out that the 1910 and 2014 sections are remnants of Gabrielle's past lives, now being purged from her subconscious.

Bonello doesn't tell the stories one at a time; he jumps around and among them. He's tracking the sources of human alienation and anxiety through the ages, asking why, in every era, we find ways to disengage from life and the people around us. The movie is especially insightful about how technology evolves. Each chapter features an artificial human companion of sorts: a line of baby dolls in 1910, a talking doll in 2014, a robot friend in 2044. Along the way, Bonello also asks questions about the future of movies, a medium so overrun with CGI that it's become harder to tell what's real from what isn't.

As grim as The Beast sounds, it isn't entirely pessimistic about the state of the world. I left the movie feeling disturbed but also enthralled, and strangely reassured by Seydoux's presence in all three stories. The futuristic Gabrielle may have to divest herself of her feelings, but Seydoux's emotions are always within reach. The more unreal her surroundings become, the more hauntingly human her performance feels.