The Banker (2020)

[StevePulaski]

The Banker (2020)
Directed by: George Nolfi

Samuel L. Jackson and Anthony Mackie in The Banker.

Rating: ★★

The Banker is a movie that gives an alternate meaning to the term "low interest rate." A trifecta of watchable performances ultimately can't save what is another conventional biopic that turns resounding triumphs into theatrical plot-points that play for an audience used to their entertainment being sanitized for their liking. While it's undeniably difficult to turn a story of number-crunching and elusive white collar deals into a compelling film, The Banker squanders the impact two of America's first black bankers had while functioning in a society that was content on them being poor with few options.

For one, it's probably better that the film saw a release on the newly launched Apple TV+ streaming service, where it would certainly be seen by more than if it were just another indistinguishable drama released in theaters amidst a crowded autumn landscape of similar offerings. But even for in-home viewing, it's a stretch to say this film is in the realm of an entertaining watch. Predicated on banking jargon, the humanity of the story is lost in a barrage of equations and corporate meddling. Attractively glossy filmmaking makes its sunny, era-specific earth-tones easy on the eyes, but it's as if in doing so, it wipes away the texture of the story.

The film concerns Bernard Garrett, played by Anthony Mackie in a rare leading performance. It's the mid-1950s and Garrett has aspirations to get into real estate despite the color barrier preventing black-owned properties. Him and his wife, Eunice (Nia Long), move to California with the plan of buying up apartment complexes with the intention of renovating and integrating them while making some coin in the process. Money in the bank isn't the issue; getting the necessary loan proves to be.

Garrett reluctantly turns to Joe Morris (Samuel L. Jackson), a wise-cracking but business savvy entrepreneur, for help. In typical Jackson fashion, he elbows his way to centerstage quite often thanks to his character's boorish personality, but the saving grace for both men, at least in the temporary, is the amiable but naive Matt Steiner (Nicholas Hoult), who helped Garrett renovate many complexes. Both Garrett and Morris try to make Steiner their middle-man by giving him a crash-course in business sense, mathematics, and golf so he can seduce elites in order to secure funding for the two men to get their piece of the American dream. Trouble arises when Steiner bites off more than he can chew, believing he can operate his own bank and, in turn, help Garrett and Morris secure more money when they take their business ventures to the Jim Crow south, specifically Garrett's hometown.

The film's midsection is devoted to the men providing Steiner will most of the information he needs to get by, whether that be in the form of lofty math equations or getting him to show competence in his golf-swing. The problem with Steiner is he's just smart enough to regurgitate the information Garrett and Morris are feeding him but just dumb enough that he struggles to dot the I's and cross the T's on important paperwork and loans in order to appear squeaky clean to the bigwigs. There's a little too much of a focus on Steiner when the obvious point of interest is two men pulling a fast one on a racist institution that would much rather entrust a gullible layman like Steiner with dealing out loans as opposed to African-Americans kicking back their community after decades of injustice.

Garrett's story is a vital cog in history; one that would pave the way for the Fair Housing Act of 1968. It's a shame director/co-writer George Nolfi, working with three other screenwriters, turned such an important, unsung piece of American history into another serviceable-at-best biopic. Where Nolfi and company succeed in making a linear narrative, they falter in robbing much of the personality out of its characters. Too often does Mackie's Garrett feel like an accessory to his own saga. So frequently, human interest is sacrificed in favor of familiar beats that turn a rousing story of breaking down racial barriers into a film that sees much of the real-life conflict made digestible for an audience not looking to be challenged greatly on their own perspective.

Not aiding matters is The Banker's controversial path to release. Originally slated to be an Oscar contender following an AFI Fest premiere and a debut on Apple TV+ in December, the film was indefinitely postponed when sexual assault allegations were levied against Bernard Garrett Jr. (one of the film's producers) by his half-sister. Also called into question are the rights to Garrett Sr.'s life story, and this dramatization curiously omits his second wife, Linda Garrett (the mother of Jr.'s half-sister), despite it taking place during the timeline of The Banker. The film finally received a low-key release on Apple's platform in March 2020, amidst a global pandemic no less, pushing it further into obscurity.

The ancillary drama does no favors for a film that already loses potential for incendiary criticism of an institution's practices by playing it dreadfully safe. A great deal of the climax relies so heavily on banking lingo that it will certainly fly over the heads of most audience members, if they're not checked out by that point already. The Banker is an optimal example of a film that nobly tries to give credence to a story that's hardly been told, but never finds its footing outside of being another sterilized biographical account of a boundary-breaking figure.

Starring: Anthony Mackie, Samuel L. Jackson, Nicholas Hoult, and Nia Long. Directed by: George Nolfi.