Kailansorac
Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.
Janae Milner
Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
Kaydan Christian
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
merelyaninnuendo
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.
Joshua H.
In 1996, "Fargo"; "Mission Impossible"; "Romeo + Juliet"; "The Rock"; and "Happy Gilmore" we're released and stole the year away from much smaller films such as "Hard Eight". This film was the directorial debut of independent director Paul Thomas Anderson. The film stars Philip Baker Hall, as the character of Sydney, an old time gambler who lives off his winnings in casino hotels. One day Sydney runs into the character of John, played by John C. Reilly. John is a loner who went into Vegas to win some money to bury his recently deceased mother. Sydney feels pity towards John, and decides to teach him how to work the casino to his advantage and make money fast. Sydney eventually takes John under his wing, and treats him like a son. Two years pass and John befriends the mysteriously sinister Jimmy, played by Samuel L. Jackson, who knows a secret that can destroy Sydney and John's relationship. A local casino waitress Clementine, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, is going through personal troubles and has a friendly relationship with Sydney. Many fans of P.T. Anderson who mostly know him for "Boogie Nights"(1997) and "There Will Be Blood"(2007) have never even heard of "Hard Eight", and it's a real shame. This film is in my opinion the most underrated film of 1996, and of the 1990s. "Hard Eight" gives a wonderfully crafted crime, casino thriller that never let's go of your attention. Hall gives the best performance of his career as Sydney. The character of Sydney is very complicated but you can tell that this man has a very big hole in his heart and the people who fill that hole is John and Clementine. You understand the character of Sydney just by the way he dresses, the way he walks and talks, the food he eats, the way he takes his coffee, and how he smokes his cigarettes. In other words Sydney is a hard ass. There are so many things you can talk about with "Hard Eight". Most movies that take place in a casino are very fast, and exciting; that is not the case with "Hard Eight". This film is very calm, and cool, and it's a beautiful contrast because a good portion of the film takes place in a casino. Anderson takes his time to tell a good story and make sure that his cinematography is on point. My favorite scene of the film is the craps scene with the loud mouth Philip Seymour Hoffman facing off with the calm and cool Sydney. Hoffman makes all his screen time count in his two minutes in the film. Hoffman constantly harasses Sydney by talking about his sexuality, and calling him and "old timer". That scene makes me laugh every time I see it. Anderson made the film for only 3 or 4 million and only grossed a little over $400,000; and that is a goddamn shame. Production for the film was dreadful for Anderson as it was just an uphill struggle just to make the film. Now it's not like Anderson is all innocent, he did some things. "Hard Eight" is a film that people are just now discovering due to Anderson's bigger more well known films. I highly recommend YOU to see this film, it will not disappoint.
jimbo-53-186511
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.
Adam Peters
(69%) A precision made crime drama that tells its very neat plot with a fine degree of characterisation and thought. The cast only consists of four different people, each adding an integral part to the movie, and once the main intention of Philip Baker Hall's character is let out there's not a lot else to be told in what is a very low key movie. The cast is pretty faultless, even the sometimes too bland Paltrow gives a good performance, but this is Hall's movie as he is one of the coolest older men ever to feature in a movie. Scriptwise this is watertight, with every section finely crafted, and the movie has aged well in nearly 20 years. Without doubt this is worth tracking down, but it does lack the substance required to make it a true classic.
