Paul Thomas Anderson is arguably the only director of his generation who has not made a bad movie–yet.
To be sure, not all of his nine features are equally impressive from an artistic standpoint–some are naturally better than others.
Please find below our evaluation of his nine features, rank ordered.
Films Ranked: Weakest to Strongest
9. Hard Eight
8. Punch Drunk Love
7. Inherent Vice
6. Phantom Thread
5. Licorice Pizza
4. The Master
Top Three
3. Magnolia, 1999
2. Boogie Nights, 1997
1. There Will Be Blood, 2007
9. Hard Eight (1996)
Anderson’s Reno-set debut — an expansion of his 1993 short “Cigarettes and Coffee” — included several familiar crime-movie elements, such as gambling, kidnapping, extortion.
However, it is the touching and ultimately tragic father-son relationship, between a shadowy older man (Philip Baker Hall) and the hapless lost cause (John C. Reilly) he takes under his wing, which makes it memorable and enduring.
Anderson demonstrated from the start that he had a voice, a vision and the ability to coax brilliant performances from large ensembles, made of character actors, not stars.
Below please fi d my original review of the film:
Sundance Film Festival 1997–A vividly evoked mood, strong dramatic characterization, and lack of conventional plot mark Paul Thomas Anderson’s impressive feature debut Hard Eight (aka Sydney).
Grade: B (***1/2* out if *****)
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Theatrical release poster
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The film relates an intensely intimate story of a gambler who befriends a young drifter, and in the process, he becomes his mentor and surrogate father,
As he will show in his next (and better) films, particularly is best–Boogie Nights and Magnolia, Anderson loves all of his characters, and thus writes rich roles for each one of them, based on taut, if sometimes enigmatic, dialogue.
John C. Reilly plays John, an unlucky fellow at the Reno gambling tables, broke and shivering outside of a roadside diner. A courtly stranger, Sydney (Philip Baker Hall) brings him to his feet, slowly gaining the young man’s confidence, offering to take him on as a protagonist.
They return to Reno, where Sydney, at once paternal and cryptic, teaches John how to “project” the image of a high roller. The lesson pays off, for John is offered a free motel room by the casino management.
Two years later, John has become a loyal student, though he still lacks Sydney’s polished restraint. In the intervening years, the two men have developed a father-son relationship, with the older man always concerned about and checking his protege’s tendencies for excess.
Sydney disapproves of John’s friendship with Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson), a vulgar Reno type, but he is supportive of his infatuation with Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow), a vulnerable cocktail waitress, who, unbeknownst to John, moonlights as a hooker.
Just hours after Clementine and John get married, she picks up a customer in a casino bar who refuses to pay her. John rushes in to help his wife, and the couple foolishly attempts to demand a ransom from the man’s wife.
Sydney cleans up the mess, and sends John and Clementine, but Jimmy knows all about Sydney’s criminal past, and demands a hefty payoff to keep quiet.
In several scenes, Anderson reveals his dual love, for the film medium as well as for actors, as in the long monologue in which Reilly relates how his trousers once caught on fire while he was waiting on line to see a movie. However, the revelation of Sydney’s paternal interest in John comes off as a melodramatic contrivance. Equally contrived is a final scene that’s too self-consciously ironic.
The movie, which is cool and controlled, displays the fluid cinematography by Robert Elswit, who orchestrates some dazzling tracking shots (tracking shots would become a staple of Anderson’s work).
Hard Eight is a chamber drama with a touch of David Mamet in its edgy dialogue, and a nod to Tarantino, which are manifest in the confrontations between Hall and Jackson and the graphic violence.
Hall, who has become Anderson’s quintessential actor (he would also appear in “Boogie Nights” and “Magnolia”), gives Sydney a touch of grave dignity and a sense of sad melancholy.
As John, a dim but decent fellow, Reilly makes his role more sympathetic than it must have been on paper.
Paltrow looks beautiful, but she has hard time conveying Clementine’s sudden mood swings and self-destructiveness.
Jackson’s flamboyance as a small hood with big ambitions recalls his turn in Tarantino’s 1994 Pulp Fiction and other films.
Though set in Vegas, Anderson doesn’t care about the glitzy side of the crass sin city–there are no all-night casinos or rich and sleazy gamblers. Instead, he focuses on the murkier and darker personalities of his low-life characters.
Spoiler Alert:
In the last sequence, Sydney sneaks into Jimmy’s house, kills him and retrieves the money. The next day, Sydney returns to the diner where he had met John. Sydney makes a point of covering the blood on his shirt cuff with his jacket sleeve.
The film was developed at the Sundance Institute Filmmaker Lab, and later played well at Sundance, Cannes and Toronto Film Fests.
The Hard Eight received a limited theatrical release, but failed miserably at the box-office.
However, it got a second life, a retroactive boost, when Anderson’s second film, Boogie Nights was released to much wider acclaim, putting him at the forefront of the most exciting indie directors to watch.
Cast
Philip Baker Hall as Sydney
John C. Reilly as John Finnegan
Gwyneth Paltrow as Clementine
Samuel L. Jackson as Jimmy
Philip Seymour Hoffman as young craps player
Robert Ridgely as Keno Bar Manager
Melora Walters as Jimmy’s Girl
Credits:
Running Time: 102 minutes
Production company: Rysher Entertainment/Green Parrot for Samuel Goldwyn
Producer: Robert Jones, John Lyons
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Screenplay: Anderson, based on his short, “Cigarettes & Coffee.”
Photography: Robert Elswit
Prod Design: Nancy Deren
Costumes: Mark Bridges
Music: Michael Penn, John Brion
Editor: Barbara Tulliver
Distributed by The Samuel Goldwyn Company
Release date: January 20, 1996 (Sundance Fest); February 28, 1997 (US)
Budget $3 million
Box office $222,559
