The Banker Review (Drama Biopic, 2020)-tom_7h7

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Learn more about the movie "The Banker" released in 2020. Honestly review and critics. Is it worthing to watch "The Banker"?
Last Updated
May 16, 2020

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The Banker - Storyline, Actors And Ratings


The movie "The Banker" is a Drama Biopic production.

IMDB rated the movie with 7.2/10. According to Google Users - 92% of the people watched the movie liked the story.

Director: George Nolphy

Actors: Samuel Al Jackson, Anthony Mackie, Nicholas Holt, Nia Long, Taylor Black, Colm Mini, Jesse Asher, Michael Harney, Gregory Alan Williams, James DuMont

I will not buy a bank in Texas. There’s such a hemorrhagic with him! A difficult decision of a cat Bagel


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The Banker Review


African-American Bernard Garrett (Anthony Mackie) was born in Texas in 1922. In his youth, he took on any job, then slowly created his own small business of cleaning the premises. But Bernard was primarily interested in investing in real estate, that was his goal. He understood that in Texas, the southern state, where many houses have Confederate flags and where racial segregation blooms in all areas of life, little shines for him, so when he had the opportunity, Bernard and his family moved to Los Angeles to marry his wife. 

In Los Angeles, he first managed to persuade a businessman of Irish origin Patrick Barker (Colm Mini) to sell him a profitable house with installments, and when Barker saw how accurately Bernard fulfilled all his promises, he did make him his partner at the rate of "50 by 50": they together bought, repaired and resold real estate in affluent areas of Los Angeles. 

However, at some point Barker died, his heiress put Bernard out of business, paying him only a quarter of the amount for his assets in the joint venture, and then Garrett had to find a new partner. 

It was Joe Morris (Samuel Al Jackson), the scion of a wealthy African-American family, who received a good inheritance and managed to multiply it: he owns several buildings in affluent neighborhoods and two nightclubs. 

Bernard had the idea to buy Banker's Building, the building that housed most of Los Angeles' banks. Garrett rightly reasoned that when he and Joe became owners of the building, they would be able to get loans to buy real estate from their bank tenants. 

However, in those days two black gentlemen could not buy such a building. And then they hired a young man named Matt Steiner (Nicholas Hoult) to serve as the face of their enterprise. Joe Morris at the same time "worked" as Matt's driver, controlling the situation and having the opportunity to be present at some meetings. 

All this was a success, Garrett and Morris became rich people, and then Bernard devoted Joe to his plan: he wants to buy a bank in Texas to lend to African-Americans to buy real estate and to develop business. At the time, African-Americans were denied that opportunity, and Garrett wants to change that in his home state. 

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This film is based on the real story, and at least in the main features there it was so. And Garrett's partnership with Barker, and the purchase of Banker's Building on a front face, and with Texas, it's also not the fiction of the writers: Bernard and Joe in Los Angeles really had a whole empire, they were rich people and Garrett could not easily get into this hornet's nest - Texas. But he was indeed a staunch fighter against segregation laws: in Los Angeles, he tried to populate high-income homes in white neighborhoods with African-Americans, and in Texas he bought two banks just to lend to blacks.

Production of the film was financed by Apple, it is one of the first original paintings of Apple, plans for this film they had ambitious: the company hoped that the picture will be able to claim an Oscar. However, before the cinema rental, which was to take place in early December last year, there was a scandal with Bernard Garrett Jr., the son of the main character of the film, who was also a co-producer of the film. His half-sisters accused Garrett Jr. of sexually abusing them in the 1970s. 

Garrett Jr.

As a result, Apple had to cancel the cinema show, Garrett Jr.'s name was removed from the credits and he stopped participating in the promotion of the film. In the box office, as far as I understood, the film was not released, but in the spring the picture appeared in the streaming service AppleTV.

Put the picture George Nolfi - director and screenwriter of the mediocre sci-fi film "Reality Change." However, here and the script (the screenwriters were five, including Nolfi himself), and the production - very worthy.

Despite the two-hour timekeeping, the film does not look drawn out and looks quite cheerful. The story of how Bernard managed to persuade Mr. Barker to sell him the building, is already quite interesting, and when Garrett met the dashing Joe Morris, there and did begin a specific fun, especially when they began to train a young white guy Matt, accustoming him to the lives and habits of rich white people. 

Around the middle of the film, the whole story seems a little glossy and lacquered: that's just bernard was penniless in his pocket, and then boom - on a couple with Joe already bought a huge building in downtown Los Angeles. 

But in the picture everything is built that when they get involved in the story with Texas, then all this gloss and stops, because they there risked at every turn and eventually finished. (The picture begins with the scene of a government judicial investigation by Arkansas Senator John McLellan, where Garrett gives evidence that could end badly for him.)

Details of all this now we will not discuss, so as not to spoiler for those who have not watched the film, let's talk about all the details in the postscript to the review. 

Anthony Mackie as Bernard Garrett - in general, quite good, but he lacks charisma. For example, Mahershala Ali ("Green Book," "True Detective 3," "House of Cards"), I think this role would have played noticeably brighter. 

But Samuel Al Jackson absolutely atomically portrayed Joe Morris: a man cynical, appreciating and loving all sorts of pleasures, who has a strong tandem with Bernard and turned out only because they are two complete opposites. Jackson his character clearly gives great pleasure, and he in the picture is pulled back - it's just great. 

Young Matt Steiner played by Nicholas Hoult is not immediately coming to the fore in the film, but just in the second half he has a lot of notable episodes, and it must be said that Holt I liked here: a straight young Tom Cruise, who has not yet learned his standard acting receivers, which in the real Tom Cruise we are at times very annoying. 

Holt and the task was difficult: in the story Matt - in general, and call him no way, his two black gentlemen trained to serve as a "white screen", however, as their banks Bernard and Joe can enter except in the form of chauffeurs or cleaners, Matt is under heavy load, and Holt was able to show it quite decently. 

Another of the acting works liked Nia Long, who played Younis, the wife of Bernard. She had few episodes, she said in mostly more or less typical phrases like "I believe in you," but even so she has already drawn attention to herself, an interesting actress. 

Decorators, prop specialists, artists have worked for glory: America of the fifties and sixties recreated very well, it all looks solid and worthy.   

I liked it, looked with pleasure. All the details and figures from the real estate market are presented dosed, and they are really important for perception, it is all done smoothly and at a good level. It's quite worth watching, in my opinion. And because of Jackson - and even more so, Jackson - just fire!

P. S. Now we will discuss some points from the film for those who have already seen it. (Of course, there will be continuous spoilers.)

From the real story I was able to find, it didn't look like Bernard was dumped by Barker's heiress. At the time of Barker's death, Garrett was worth $1.5 million (now about $15 million), and it was after his partner's death that he already had the money to implement a daring plan to buy Banker's Building to get some funds to influence the banks. 

There are a lot of ambiguities with what happened in Texas. They bought Main Land Bank and Trust Co. (Garrett and Morris had other partners, notably Don Silverthorne, president of the National Bank of San Francisco), and then First National Bank of Marlin. The film shows that buying a second bank was the idea of Matt, who wanted to become the sole manager of the bank, and this resulted in the collapse, but where I read about this story, it is written that just Matt protested against the purchase of the second bank.

But Steiner was indeed screwed up because he failed to track the change in banking laws in time, leaving Garrett and Morris as the actual owners of the banks facing a commission of inquiry into misuse of funds, and they were sentenced to three years in prison after nine months on parole.

It is not known if Garrett was offered a deal. In the film, he seemed to agree to a deal so that Senator John McLellan of Arkansas could advance his amendments to the banking legislation, but the court erupted in an impassioned speech against segregation, for which, in fact, he landed in prison.

 

However, distress that at least in any interview Bernard repeatedly stressed that he bought banks in Texas with the main goal - to give African-Americans access to bank loans.

And here's a note from the then press: "How two "cleaners" bought a white bank in Texas."

 


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Watch The Banker Trailer


Based on a true story, “The Banker” centers on revolutionary businessmen Bernard Garrett (Anthony Mackie) and Joe Morris (Samuel L. Jackson), who devise an audacious and risky plan to take on the racially oppressive establishment of the 1960s by helping other African Americans pursue the American dream. Along with Garrett’s wife Eunice (Nia Long), they train a working-class white man, Matt Steiner (Nicholas Hoult), to pose as the rich and privileged face of their burgeoning real estate and banking empire – while Garrett and Morris pose as a janitor and a chauffeur. Their success ultimately draws the attention of the federal government, which threatens everything the four have built.


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