How did that guy's confession to illegally falsifying the document to foreclose on the guy's home do the guy any good? He will LOSE HIS HOME ANYWAY right? He SHOT A GUN AT POLICE, thats many years in prison, so he loses his home anyway. Maybe his family can stay in it but they will be impoverished since the breadwinner of the family will be in prison where the highest paying job is less than minimum wage. That "confession' was too little too late.
shareThe confession was prompted as much by Garfield's desire to end the standoff nonviolently (the primary concern) as it was by his crisis of conscience. Your presumption that the homeowner will be in big trouble for firing his gun is probably correct. Aside from the dramatic impact it added to that scene, maybe the writer/director is intentionally working in an anti-gun message -- especially when you consider how responsibly, in this situation, the police were acting with their drawn firearms.
Martha Washington was a hip, hip, hip lady, man.
If I understood the situation correctly (big if), the falsified paperwork was only a matter of the timing and procedures for promulgating the foreclosure and eviction. The home "owner" is still in default, he's still going to lose his house, though this fraud may delay the process. It is not, as Garfield said "his house." In the mean time, the Shannon character will lose out on the deal with the big NY money men.
Great, the guy and family will still be evicted and now some other snake will come in and make the same deal. Meanwhile Garfield loses his job, has to move into his uncle's house in Tampa, and flip burgers for a living, and his kid loses all his Orlando chums.
That's what I felt was the most unrealistic part of the movie. When Grandma and Nash ask the little boy if he wants to stay in that awesome badass house with the basketball net and pool (for even three week or forever), the child says no?
That's so unrealistic. There were thuggish people swearing in that motel complex, not to mention that crazy larger guy who kept hounding them. The grandma just taking away the son to Uncle Jim's place was kinda illegal, since the grandmother is not the legal guardian.
As for the climax, whatever he said due to the nature of the standoff will most likely get thrown out anyways. The police or Rich could just say he was saying that to end the conflict peacefully with no one getting killed.
The house still belongs to the bank, and the detectives at the scene may see that Rich did something to block the foreclosure, so there's a 50/50 chance that Rich may not get that big deal. That's where the title comes from, they got 99 Homes out of 100, most likely Rich lost out on that big deal. Either way, David is out of a job himself now, has a giant house with no kid, and its an unhappy ending for everyone.
Rick Carver printed that falsified document and told his underlings to plant it illegally. I would have liked an ending where he ends up in prison.
That guy was a real piece of work, he even was non chalant about flaunting a mistress while he was married and had daughters, some example as a parent he is setting?
Off the topic but still about the ending (and sort of a spoiler) - when Carver says "thank you" to Garfield's character, was he being sarcastic? Was he showing off for the cops and hoping that they would see that he was "appreciative" of Garfield's effort for helping diffuse the situation? Or was he genuinely grateful because he knew that his business was filthy and deep down he wanted out? I'm not sure, I'm just asking for opinions....despite many of the criticisms I've seen in this board, many of which I agree with, I thought it was a really well-done film; great acting and generally really well written, put you in the place of all the people who got screwed by the banks and the lenders....
shareMy opinion may very well be wrong, but I couldn't pass your questions by. :)
I think he was quite sarcastic and wanted to make Andrew's character regret what he did and show this regret - so there was at least some moral compensation for him (Rick) in this situation (and showing off for the cops was - to save face, to act cool and not to show his anger etc. (like he's not a bad guy)).
It seems to me, Rick also felt kind of disappointed: maybe he thought he built a stronger man out of some softy one (Dennis) and was proud of himself, felt like he did something good to someone (while he often hears a different story from people) - and then this (failure, betrayal). And also all these financial losses and damage for his career, all this life he's used to...
So in my opinion, only his unconsciousness 'could feel' some relief and satisfaction (and his body - but not his mind, and mostly he hates all this and thinks how to minimize the damage and to get his life back; I suppose he's not fed up enough yet with that violent lifestyle of his to embrace the 'punishment').
About mid-way I was wondering by Carver would choose to work with a man, Nash, who was too emotional towards his house. He kept asking Carver to buy the house back and was willing to pay double the value. That would have sent red flags up to me.
shareI think 'cause Rick, I guess, had this type of personality - a very insecure one - so he's always concerned if he's the one who controls a situation, - and he saw Nash as a person who'd always be weaker than Carver himself. Nash seemed (and was for quite a while) easy enough to manipulate.
And also Nash was pretty enthusiastic, and the boss could just work less and yet get a lot, grow bigger without much effort.
Most of all, I felt the ending was supposed to leave some ambiguity as to what the outcome would be.
But, on balance, it seemed most plausible to hear Carver's "thank you" as not so much sarcastic as his own CYA, playing a role - which is all he knows how to do anymore - in this case playing innocent and thanking Nash for 'coming clean' so as to save lives but as if it was Nash owning up to his own sin - and sending at the same time a coded message to Nash himself that meant "thanks for saying you did it ... cuz now i'm gonna run with that to save my own neck." When Nash looks back from the cop car to the lawn, Carver is lighting up a cigarette, no one is interrogating him much less cuffing him for arrest. I read into that ambiguity that, given everything the film has exposed in so many ways, as Carver himself said, it's a system "of the winners, by the winners and for the winners" - and having become a 'winner' means he has lots of chits to cash in - to buy influence - to escape consequences ... And that only Nash, who let himself makes a Faustian bargain (that i was personally beseeching him not to make, as I imagine the film positioned most viewers to do), will pay the price for his losing his soul for dough. The message imho was: No matter how screwed you were, how wrong and unjust your loss was, the sun doesn't shine on those who resolve to rationalize any means to an end in the effort to regain what they lost.
I agree with you about the power of the film - acting and writing and directing - Michael Shannon gave such an amazing portrayal in the terrific and also ambiguous film Take Shelter (see it if you haven't), playing a schizophrenic so believably, that to see him now go so amoral and villainous opportunist in this film has cemented him in the upper ranks of acting chops for me. Both of the leads made their characters, sadly in different ways, utterly believable.
i've only seen this once and even then I missed bits of it, but in addition to seemingly facing no consequences, wouldn't Greg Buel also get to keep all the money that Nash had been earning because he was holding it for him until there was enough to buy back the old house? Or was that plan scrapped and that's why Nash tried to move his family to that big house?
If my initial assessment was correct, though, it would mean that in addition to being arrested at the end, Nash wouldn't have seen a cent for all that work he'd done
mikesilvers>>>>>>>Rick was being a smartass by saying "Thank you". I pictured it as if he were silently thinking "Thanks a lot you piece of $hit!"
shareI did like this movie, and of course thought the acting was phenomanal, but it's this last scene, actually the last act that holds the movie from greatness. A very good movie, but could have been great
shareIf Nash had half a brain, he would tell anyone who asked later that he just made it up to diffuse the situation.
sharethe confession amounts to nothing
shareMy understanding was different. The paper that was forged was a document that had to have been filed two years prior giving notice to the homeowner but had never been filed. I understood one of them to say that the missing document was fatal to the case for foreclosure, which is why Carver was willing to risk forgery - it was NOT an inconsequential document, it was a document without which the homeowner had made his case that the required procedures for foreclosure had not been followed and therefore he could not be foreclosed on.
And I suspect since no one wound up injured, given that Nash's confession proves that fraud had been perpetrated on the homeowner (Greene?), he would be given a relatively light judgment, perhaps based on temporary insanity given the fraud and betrayal of the system.
What I kept waiting for was Nash and Greene to pass eye to eye on the lawn and what that look would be.
p.s. Where I would agree that the confession was too little too late - well at least too late - was whether it could save Nash's soul in the eyes of his son and mother. Someone expressed disbelief that the son would reject the nouveau riche home but it was believable to me given that he'd learned his dad had sold his soul for it - and dad had also done a bait and switch after convincing him he was getting his old home back - the son had grown wary by then too and was slow to believe he could actually move back into his old house with friends across the street but he then had 'bought it' as real and allowed himself to reinvest in that joy, only to have his dad take it away and substitute it with something else, no matter how "cool" a place, it wasn't home to him. And then to discover that their recovery was cuz dad had gone collaborator with the devil who'd taken their home away? It was too much. And Nash's confession is probably too late for that "loss of innocence" for his son. Dad becoming his hero again? Highly unlikely.
shareI don't know, but after all the frustration, empathy ang general the moví inflicted on us I found that open ending as a bit of a letdown. Ser, it would be more satisfactory for the viewer the comeuppance falling on Carver explicitly.