The C-List

99 HOMES (C+) - What do we make of Ramin Bahrani?

From 2005 to 2008, he could do no wrong, mesmerizing filmgoers with "Man Push Cart," "Chop Shop" and "Goodbye Solo." He dipped below the radar for about a life cycle, and he re-emerged last year with the horribly tone-deaf clunker "At Any Price." It was a serious misstep. And now he fumbles another earnest drama, in which Michael Shannon plays an evil real estate schemer during the depths of the foreclosure scandal in 2010.

Everything goes wrong for 112 minutes, even though Bahrani's heart is in it. Andrew Garfield is woefully miscast as scruffy Dennis Nash, a hardscrabble foreclosure victim who enters into a deal with the devil -- he joins the shady operation Shannon's Rick Carver, the man who grabbed his home, in exploiting the system and preying on underwater homeowners. Nash is living in a rundown motel (populated, improbably, almost exclusively by foreclosure victims) with his mom (Laura Dern) and freckle-faced son (Noah Lomax), vowing to reclaim their family home.

Everything is at stake but you wouldn't know it from Bahrani's ham-fisted dialogue and sluggish pacing. Garfield (who I've seen only in "The Social Network," and I don't remember him) is just out of his league trying to carry a major motion picture on his narrow shoulders. Shannon is one of the finest actors of his day, but he has nothing and no one to connect to here. His venom comes off as a desperate attempt to step into the void created by the rest of the cast. Dern -- flailing ever since her wonderful HBO show "Enlightened" -- misjudges yet another mom role, as she struggles to find a suitable script now that she has transitioned to middle age (see also "Wild" and "The Fault in Our Stars").

But it's Bahrani who sticks them all with a dud. Those first three films -- which earned wide praise, including from the late Roger Ebert -- were small character studies, each with a gritty documentary feel to them. With these last two films, Bahrani is trying to ratchet up his storytelling, go big. But these solemn everyman tragedies just do not click. He seems to be hopelessly adrift. This movie was dedicated to Ebert, who, unfortunately, is no longer around to offer some advice to a filmmaker who has lost his way.

LOVE AT FIRST FIGHT (C+) - Too cute for an indie romance, and too slow for a slow burn, this quaint drama from a new French director, Thomas Cailley.

Here is a helpful, succinct plot summary from IMDb:

Between his friends and the family business, Arnaud's summer looks set to be a peaceful one. Peaceful until he runs into Madeleine, as beautiful as she is brusque, a concrete block of tensed muscles and doomsday prophecies. He expects nothing; she prepares for the worst. He takes things as they come, likes a good laugh. She fights, runs, swims, pushes herself to the limit. Given she hasn't asked him for anything, just how far will he go along with her? It's a love story. Or a story of survival. Or both.

Adele Haenel brings a refreshing depth and nuance to the role of Madeleine, a tough nut to crack. She longs to serve in the military, and she is determined to sign up for a summer boot camp. That drive wins over Arnaud (a rather static Kevin Azais), who also slowly develops a crush on the hard-ass Madeleine. The middle third of the movie brings the two together in sweet bonding moments.

By the conclusion, though, it's difficult to feel invested in these two young adults. We know that their initial meet-cute must eventually blossom into a tender moment. Once that moment passes, the narrative fizzles, and we're left with a rather ordinary story of two rather ordinary people. In the end, that's just not quite enough.