GREED IS THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN.

Unemployed Orlando construction worker Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) is evicted from his home, along with his mother (Laura Dern) and son… but then he starts working for the man who threw him out, a shameless real estate operator (Michael Shannon).

Ramin Bahrani thanked Roger Ebert for being an early sponsor by dedicating this film to the late critic; I’m sure he would have loved this report from the collapsed housing market of 2008.

In a moving and deeply humanistic way, never going for the simplistic, Bahrani shows us the worst side of capitalism and how society failed thousands of families who lost their homes. The two leads are both brilliant.

2015-U.S. 112 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed and edited by Ramin Bahrani. Screenplay: Ramin Bahrani, Amir Naderi. Cast: Andrew Garfield (Dennis Nash), Michael Shannon (Rick Carver), Laura Dern (Lynn Nash), Tim Guinee, Noah Lomax, Clancy Brown. 

Trivia: Co-produced by Bahrani.

Last word: “I can’t imagine anyone who’s doing what Michael Shannon’s doing – it’s just a next-level kind of performance. I was thinking about that movie, Up in the Air, where the topic says, ‘Headhunter, people losing their jobs, etc.’ That’s a scary subject that you probably don’t want to watch, but then you see George Clooney and you come to realize that movie’s an entertaining film about an interesting and serious subject. But it’s not a dark movie. This has that same sort of thing. You hear the word ‘foreclosure’ but then you go to see the film and realize, ‘Oh, this is a thriller. It’s a deal-with-the-devil film that has these amazing actors in it.’” (Bahrani, Indiewire)