As a directorial debut from one of America's finest living directors, Hard Eight is an excellent film that demonstrated Paul Thomas Anderson's skills as a filmmaker. With a simple plot focusing on Sydney (Phillip Baker Hall), an elderly gambler deciding to teach the tricks of the Las Vegas trade to the young and naive John (John C. Reilly). Whilst the film is known as the debut of its director, the movie is certainly the quietest and lowkey out of all his films. Like all of Anderson's films though, he certainly gets the very best out of his actors, particularly Phillip Baker Hall. He plays the role with a quiet and straight-laced intensity that almost seems like this is just one small story in Sydney's life. It's almost a shame that Hall didn't get as juicy of a role as this prior but it's good to see that he became a great character actor. Fantastic turns from both Reilly and Gwyneth Paltrow (the object of John's desires) make this an utterly compelling and interesting character study. To quote Stephen Holden, "it is not a movie that wants to an make a grand statement". It's a film about its characters, with less of the showy cinematic traits and themes that would mark some of Anderson's later films. It certainly lacks the depths and emotional intensity of his future films but as a small, simple thriller, it showed Anderson was already a talent to behold.
Review of Hard Eight
