Country: United States
Genre: Drama/ Art
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Year: 1996
Rating: 
TRASH CINEMA RECOMMENDED MOVIE
I decided to review Hard Eight because it’s the first film of Paul Thomas Anderson, who went on to create the great Boogie Nights before he decided to go the full blown artiste route with Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, and There Will Be Blood.
In truth, Hard Eight is an art film that uses genre trappings. It was originally entitled Sidney, which is fitting, since Hard Eight is a character study.
Sidney (Philip Baker Hall, who wasn’t even nominated for an Academy Award for his amazing work) comes across John (John C. Reilly), a loser who just lost everything in Vegas trying to raise the funds to bury his mother. Sidney is a professional gambler of few words who never so much as lights a cigarette without calculating the impact of his actions first, so when he decides to teach John the ropes, it’s a bit surprising that he would take such a loser under his wing. You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. What does he want from John? It’s not sex — that’s established right away. But never mind.
A couple of years later, the pair come across Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow), a waitress cum hooker. Sidney notices that John has taken an interest in Clementine, so she becomes part of this ersatz family that Sidney is forming.
Then Clementine and John, who are clearly losers and not too bright, screw up in such a spectacular manner that you’ve got to wonder — Sidney is no dummy — when is he going to cut his losses and dump these two clowns? Complicating things is Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson), a bad seed who hangs out with John and knows more about his personal business than Sidney would like.
Hard Eight, despite it’s genre trappings, is not about thrills and spills. Director Paul Thomas Anderson writes and directs the way Sidney operates, with no unnecessary flourishes. The camera moves are elegant and often simple, but never simplistic. The dialog is the same way. The focus is squarely on Sidney and the central mystery of the movie is “Who is this guy? What is he really all about?”
It’s a tribute to Paul Thomas Anderson’s talent as a writer/director that this question is mesmerizing. In fact, Hard Eight is a better movie than my three star rating would indicate, but my rating applies to Hard Eight as Trash Cinema. If you love Trash Cinema, your entry into Hard Eight will be the sordid aspects of the piece - the threat of violence and so on. But you’ll stick around so you can get to know Sidney.
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