Let's be realistic.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

This film tells the story of a professional gambler, who takes a broke young man under his wing. He teaches the young man how to win in casinos, but things take a turn when they meet a beautiful waitress called Clementine.Firstly, I am impressed by the actors and actresses who have become very big names subsequent to this film. Secondly, the story is intriguing and engaging. It doesn't feel like it's 90 minutes long! Clementine is adorable and​charming, and it's easy to see why John feel for her. The events at the end are unexpected, and makes the film exec more interesting. The most memorable thing for me though, is the professional gambler. His calm, controlled demeanour is contrary to what I expect from a professional gambler!

Veteran gambler Sydney (Philip Baker Hall) stumbles across John (John C Reilly) sat outside a diner. The two men strike up a conversation and Sydney quickly learns that John has tried his hand at gambling in order to pay for his mother's funeral. Sydney offers to help John out and gives him a crash-course in how to hustle the casino out of a fortune. Although Sydney seems to be helping John out, is there more to what he's doing than meets the eye? This is Paul Thomas Anderson's debut picture (both as writer and director) and under normal circumstances I would normally go easy on a debutant's picture. Unfortunately, I've seen a few of PTA's films such as Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood and Punch Drunk Love and therefore I can't really be that charitable and sadly all of these films suffer the same problems as Hard Eight (albeit to varying degrees). Anyway let's try and evaluate this film.Well I have to admit that it started well and seemed to tell the tale of a young man called John who needed a bit of a direction in life. John then stumbles across Sydney who teaches him how to hustle the casino and teaches him a bit of self-respect and how to value himself as a person. OK so far so good, but what happens beyond this point is almost beyond a travesty....The film then skips by two years and we now find ourselves in Reno, Nevada. Sydney is in a casino there and John is in there too with his new friend Jimmy (Samuel L Jackson). It's clear from this point that we're lead to assume that Jimmy has lead John astray, but is this actually true? From this point on the film goes from telling an interesting story about John (a misguided individual) getting some direction in life (from Syndey) to a stupid story about his shotgun wedding to casino waitress and prostitute on the side Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow)and them keeping a guy hostage because he didn't pay Clementine for sex - I get what Anderson was getting at here, but it's so badly handled that it becomes laughable.The film takes a turn for the worst when Jimmy and Sydney meet and we learn that Sydney killed John's father. I suspect Anderson intended this to be a plot twist that got the 'Wow' factor from the audience, but it's one that's so ludicrous and jars against the narrative so much that it's almost too ridiculous to believe. Yes it at least explains why Sydney wanted to bond with John at the start, but I felt a bit cheated when this was revealed. The story struggles more under scrutiny when you realise that Jimmy and Sydney were both in Atlantic City when Jimmy saw Sydney murder John's father, but then the two just happen to both meet a few years later 2,500 miles away from the crime scene with the son of the dead dad just happening to be there as well. I'm all for trying to suspend disbelief, but this was just too much.The ending is even worse when we see Jimmy get killed by the very guy that killed John's father; yes Jimmy was wrong to blackmail Sydney, but it's clear that Sydney was the worst of the two. This aspect of the film is even worse when you consider that Anderson offers no real commentary on anything that's happened and ends the film in a lazy way whereby you don't know whether or not Syndey gets away with his crimes. Even if this aspect of the plot didn't bother you the fact that Anderson didn't even bother to make Jimmy's assassination surprising or suspenseful just showed a real lack of care.The only positive I can take from this film is that it is very well-made. Anderson's direction is stylish and the performances from the likes of Baker-Hall, Jackson & Reilly were all good (the first two gave rather stock performances, but Reilly really excelled in giving his character a gawky nervous charm). I like the late Philip Seymour Hoffman as an actor, but he was actually really annoying in the 5 minutes or so that he was in this film. Ultimately, the big problem with Hard Eight is that it's really badly-written and whilst I got the feeling that Anderson was attempting to make this an insightful character study he doesn't give this film or his characters anywhere near the required depth to make these aspects work as well as they should do.

Hard Eight (1996): Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson / Cast: Phillip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson, Philip Seymour Hoffman: Intriguing view of guilt presented as the game Hard Eights itself. Phillip Baker Hall invites a depressed John C. Reilly to coffee. Reilly claims to need $6000 to bury his mother and offers Hall fifty for a trip to Vegas where he is taught how to win at the slot machines. Reilly meets a waitress played by Gwyneth Paltrow and not long after they are married. Director Paul Thomas Anderson employee many surprises including an ending that solves nothing. What works is intriguing well written characters that elevate above the plot. Great performance by Hall smitten with guilt over the death of Reilly's father. This is an opportunity for Reilly to play a lead. He plays an individual broken by family loss and attempts happiness with this sudden romance that turns ugly when prostitution plays a factor. Paltrow is interesting as a waitress who marries Reilly only to end up with a stranger handcuffed to the bed in a prostitution scam. Samuel L. Jackson is excellent as a blackmailer who knows Hall's past and the secret he conceals. Philip Seymour Hoffman makes an appearance as a craps player. Anderson gambles simple setups yet comes up with the winning hand on a screenplay that addresses guilt and the ever conscious need to hide sin. Score: 8 / 10

Paul Thomas Anderson's first film really had everything - Gwynneth Platrow! Samuel L. Jackson! John C. Reilly! Philip Seymour Hoffman! and of course, a magisterial performance from veteran actor Philip Baker Hall in the lead role. But it's not just the mostly not-yet-quite-so-famous cast that make the movie stand out. Structured as a taut three-act play, the movie is mesmerising but never easy: Reilly plays a loser's loser, Paltrow's role is not the sort in which her contemporary audience to seeing her, Hofmann is just repulsive, there's something faintly effeminate (on first glance) about Jackson, while Hall is supremely enigmatic right until the end. A heavy score guides us through the confusion. In contrast, Anderson's later films seem overweight and comfortable (although the director has re-used some of the same cast in his other works). Although it has something of a beginner's feel to it (the low budget, and there's a certain show-off property in the depths of it's stylish restraint), it's still my favourite of his movies.