Hard Eight

By STEPHEN HOLDEN
the New York Times
February 28, 1997


A sullen young roustabout slumped outside a diner off a desert
highway near Las Vegas, Nev., s approached by a well-dressed
older man with bags under his eyes and a poker face who offers
to buy him coffee. Suspicious but hungry, the young man, John
(John C. Reilly) accepts, and over breakfast, Sydney (Philip
Baker Hall), the grimly formal stranger who accosted him, poses
a question, "If I were to give you $50, what would you do with
it?"

As "Hard Eight" tracks the mentor-protege relationship that
Sydney cultivates with a gravity befitting Rod Serling
introducing "The Twilight Zone," the movie smells like one of
David Mamet's fiendish stories of grifters embroiled in tricky
games of cat and mouse. But Paul Thomas Anderson, who wrote and
directed the movie, which is his first feature film, has other
things on his mind. Sydney's motives aren't revealed until the
film is almost over. Let it suffice to say they have to do with
guilt and with a warped, grandiose sense of honor.

One of the many strengths of this beautifully controlled, slow-
moving film is that the revelations come as a complete surprise
at the same time that they make psychological sense. Not only
that, but Hall's portrayal of a mysterious father figure whose
air of unbreachable solemnity borders on caricature is in
keeping with who Sydney turns out to be.

After their coffee klatch, Sydney drives John back to Las Vegas,
where he gives him $150 to gamble in an elaborately specific way
that enables John to secure himself free hotel accommodations
for the night. The story then jumps ahead two years. By now,
Sydney and John have become a team of low-rolling gamblers
working their way around the Nevada casino circuit, and John
idolizes Sydney to the point of trying to dress like him.

In Reno, John has befriended a cocky security guard named Jimmy
(Samuel L. Jackson) who is cynical and profane and likes to
drink. Although Sydney can't stand his protege's new friend, he
swallows his distaste. But Jimmy still senses Sydney's contempt
and chafes under it.

John has also fallen in love with Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow),
a cocktail waitress and occasional prostitute with smeary
lipstick, chipped nail polish and too much kohl under her eyes.
Sydney, whom Clementine deferentially refers to as "the Captain,"
cautiously supports the relationship. Then, one evening, John, in
a panic, summons Sydney to his motel room, where a man he
describes as a hostage lies unconscious, copiously bleeding from
his head onto a pillow. Clementine sits in one corner, her head in
her hands. Instead of walking out on a scene that spells disaster,
Sydney, the unflappable problem solver, sets to work cleaning up
the situation.

To give away any more of the story would spoil the suspense that
"Hard Eight" works so diligently to sustain. This is a film in
which every beat of dialogue, every camera angle and every note
of slinky background lounge music has been calculated to create
a mood of faintly sleazy cool. The story is set during Christmas.
And in one scene the sound of a dead-voiced lounge singer groaning
"O Little Town of Bethlehem" leaks into the corners of the film,
adding just the right note of queasiness and bad faith.

"Hard Eight" is not a movie that wants to make a grand statement.
It is really little more than a small resonant mood piece whose
hard-bitten characters are difficult to like. But within its self-
imposed limitations, it accomplishes most of what it sets out to
do. And the acting is wonderfully understated, economical and
unsentimental. Hall's Sydney is a sleek 90s version of an Edward
G. Robinson character playing his cards extremely close to the
vest without even a hint of vulnerability on his ravaged face.

Reilly and Ms. Paltrow play impulsive, not-very-bright people who
are too buffeted by life to be able to plan ahead or even to think
clearly in moments of crisis. But instead of telegraphing their
characters' limitations, they allow us to discover them for
ourselves. The role of Jimmy is one of Jackson's scarier
characters, and this brilliant actor inhabits all four corners of
his jittery, avaricious personality. When he and Sydney finally
clash, the movie makes its darkest, cleverest turn into film-noir
nightmare.



PRODUCTION NOTES

HARD EIGHT


Rating: "Hard Eight" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying
parent or guardian). It has profanity and violence.


Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson; director of
photography, Robert Elswit; edited by Barbara Tulliver; music
by Michael Penn and Jon Brion; production designer, Nancy Deren;
produced by Robert Jones and John Lyons; released by Rysher
Entertainment. Running time: 101 minutes.

Cast: Philip Baker Hall (Sydney), John C. Reilly (John), Gwyneth
Paltrow (Clementine), Samuel L. Jackson (Jimmy) and F. William
Hoffman (Hostage).