“99 Homes,” which opened last week nationwide, is a refreshing reverse look at the real estate and foreclosure debacle without the sexy Wall Street glitz and gloss. The movie takes place in Florida, one of the states most decimated by foreclosures over the last decade, and peers into the dark and hopeless face of loss that millions of Americans experienced with the housing crisis.

Directed by Ramin Bahrani, the film begins at the heart of things: with a family confronting the eviction from their home of over 30 years. We see the family (Andrew Garfield, Laura Dern) pass through phases of grief, denial, reasoning and rage as the villainous real estate investor Rick Carver (Michael Shannon), accompanied by the local sheriff, forces the removal of the family with all of their belongings into their front yard.

At its core, “99 Homes” doesn't just review the foreclosure epidemic that swept the nation with the economic meltdown of 2007-8, but puts a human face on the crisis like no film that has come before it, showing the reality that millions of Americans experienced who were thrown out of their homes as the Wall Street banks that imploded the economy got bailed out.

We see characters handing over “cash for keys,” agreeing to short sales too quickly, and expeditiously vacating their properties in response to banks' repossession of their homes and sheriffs pounding on their door to evict them. Families are told to take what is important to them immediately and get out. Some are furious, grief stricken and horrified; the most heart-wrenching example in the film is the bewilderment of a senior citizen removed from his home with no place to go and no one to call for help.

The main character, Dennis Nash (Garfield), struggles with his own moral compass when he takes a lucrative job with Carver to deliver to other homeowners the same ruthless action he and his family suffered in their eviction. Nash and Carver illustrate a duality between good and evil, as Nash – who must find a way to survive in an economy where work is hard to come by – gets tempted and seduced by economic gain to do Carver's bidding. For him, it comes down to survival of the fittest.

The film takes a hard look at the “winners” and “losers” of the economic downturn, presenting what much of the mainstream media was too afraid to show about the degree of criminal corruption and greed that drove some to profit wildly from the rigged foreclosure system.

In many ways, however, the film simplifies a very complex issue about the housing crisis: namely, the way that felonious banks, which gambled with the public's money and lost, simply paid off the government to the tune of billions in settlements for harm done – but never actually admitted to nor were held accountable for their crimes. The film's oversimplification of winners and losers is thus a missed opportunity to expose the deeper systemic issues underlying a crisis that continues today to decimate the middle class.

Based on what little we've seen from Hollywood in terms of taking on the banking and foreclosure fraud, “99 Homes” does a good job contrasting the inhumane methods used by those in positions of power – the "winners" who enjoyed bottomless champagne and fine cars for their efforts – and the loss and despair of those whose lives the system wrecked.

But where the movie ends here, it could have instead been a powerful beginning to reveal what was really at the heart of the mortgage and foreclosure crisis: the rigging of the financial and real estate markets, the fraudulent manufacturing of documents for eviction, the scams that fleeced government programs which were designed to help homeowners. These issues are touched on briefly in the film when Nash faces a true soul-searching moment. But the righting of wrongs, and the rectification of the facts – what truly happened in the crisis, and why – doesn't get enough attention.

The lack of prosecutions against criminal bankers and mortgage lenders, the failure to assist homeowners who took the giant hit, the endless title forgeries, the Big Bank bailouts – these subjects may be less sexy onscreen than images of Wall Street players snorting through their winnings. But these are the real themes the American public needs to see highlighted. Because they strike at the heart of what continues to destroy so many homeowners' lives still today: a game where winners take all, and so-called “losers” aren't only robbed of shelter and dignity, but of any sense of hope that justice will be served.

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