After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Hard EightThe feature is scattered among few dramatic and chaotic sequences that upbeats its scale to a whole new level with enough material to feed the audience for around 100 minutes of its runtime. Its a rare character driven feature that has quiet a good pace that holds the audience on the edge of their seat which usually isn't the case. Paul Thomas Anderson aces on creating such amusing characters that tackles their way up and through his knockout execution skills, he has got this round covered. Philip Baker Hall has done some of his career's best work amng other cast that has thoroughly supported him like John C. Riley, Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson. Hard Eight hits hard and fast and knocks it right out of the park where despite of having brilliant performance on its side, the feature endorses Paul Thomas Anderson and its skills that is visible all over the screen.

Professional gambler Sydney teaches John the tricks of the trade. John does well until he falls for cocktail waitress Clementine.Paul Thomas Anderson consistently makes good movies. And, as this film reveals, he always has. This is a debut feature film that comes across like the work of a seasoned professional. Great casting, great plot, and perfect pacing that keeps everything moving forward. It is not a crime story so much as a love story, but hides it so well in the world of crime that you never even notice.Credit must really go to John C. Reilly. Although his role (John) was not necessarily the strongest character in the film, Reilly does a great job with him. Although he is mostly known these days for his comedy work, this is proof that he is far more than just a comedian.

John (John C. Reilly) has to get six thousand dollar and he is embarrassed to say why: he went to Las Vegas and lost all of his money he was investing in order to bury his mother. Yet, when a stranger named Sydney (Philip Baker Hall) offers him a trip to Las Vegas and fifty dollars without any conditions, John takes the opportunity and learns the tricks of gambling from him, yet there is more than meets the eye in why this professional gambler decided to help him.Paul Thomas Anderson's feature debut is indicative of his mastery as one of the great directors of our time, it bears all of his trademark points in their inception, and it is by all means a good movie even though it is also bears the heavy handed character development PTA sometimes puts the audience through other than having clearing left some big story elements on the cutting room floor.All of the traits you expect from a PTA film are present: incredible performances from all of the actors, tight and riveting dialogue throughout the whole film, long tracking shots that serve story and impeccable staging and blocking. "Hard Eight" has it all and it is all done masterfully, from a technical point of view this is one of the best debut features I have ever seen, the mastery behind the camera that is expressed shows a maturity that goes well beyond what a first feature should achieve and that is all merit that goes to Anderson for his brilliant vision and his confidence in bringing it to life.When you think that he made this being barely twenty six years old there is lots to brood about. I mean, he is directing Philip Baker Hall, one of the most respected and glorious character actors ever to appear on the silver screen and the performance he manages to take out of him is overwhelming. The actor himself deserves so much praise in the way he manages to establish a beat and a presence for himself. You fully believe this mysterious figure and in lesser hands I really don't think an audience could have kept the suspension of disbelief for how long the film asks for, but thanks to Baker Hall it works and it works brilliantly. From the most minute details to the way he speaks, the fluency he establishes, this is really good character work that teaches a lot on how to direct an actor, but even more so on how to use an actor's strong points in your film and how to edit correctly a performance.John C. Reilly is pretty good in his role, but he gets over shadowed both by the lead performance both by his fellow cast mates, Samuel Jackson and Gwenyth Paltrow. They both bring to life characters that have the usual complexity you would have come to expect in a PTA film, yet they manage to be understated and don't overplay their dynamic which is what some actors have unfortunately done in their roles with this incredible director. Then, Phip Seymour Hoffman comes in and just reminds you what a force of nature he was. He has just one scene, but what he achieves in his short screen time is as good and as memorable of a performance as any of the other actors.Finally with all this talent in front of the camera, you have a style and a pace that don't step in front of them and instead support them in every possible way. The visual storytelling in this film is breathtaking, the smart and delicate edits peppered through it were a pleasure to experience, the way Andersone quietly switches shots in the same conversation to explain how status is changing in them is inspiring filmmaking. Moreover, the blocking of the actors is once again an element in which PTA just schools everyone and shows his unbelievable talent.Where the film really tripped for me was in resolution. Now it has to be noted that the film underwent severe cutting by the studio and intense creative differences. And honestly, looking back, it feels like that. There is something that is missing here. the incredible character work, the surreal set-up, the subtle mystery, the resolution, it all feels cut short. There is an element of disappointment when you understand the whole character dynamic and it doesn't feel as three dimensional as it should be, it lacked in grit and emotional impact.Still, "Hard Eight", whilst lacking a substantial amount of pay off, has so many filmmaking gems and qualities to it, it will be hard to resist its subtle and clever charm.

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.