Hard Eight (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hard Eight
Hardeight.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byPaul Thomas Anderson
Screenplay byPaul Thomas Anderson
Based onCigarettes & Coffee
by Paul Thomas Anderson
Produced byRobert Jones
John Lyons
Starring
CinematographyRobert Elswit
Edited byBarbara Tulliver
Music byJon Brion
Michael Penn
Production
company
Distributed byThe Samuel Goldwyn Company
Release date
Running time
102 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$3 million
Box office$222,559[1]

Hard Eight (originally titled Sydney[2]) is a 1996 American crime film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson in his feature directorial debut. It stars Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson.[3]

Plot[]

Sydney, a well-dressed older gambler, finds a young man, John, forlornly sitting outside a diner in Sparks, Nevada. He offers to give him a cigarette and buy him a cup of coffee. John tells Sydney that he lost all of his money in Vegas and he needs $6,000 for his mother's funeral. Sydney offers to drive John to Las Vegas, where he helps John win the money. Two years later, John becomes Sydney's protégé. Sydney is calm and reserved, and displays a fatherly care for John, who is unsophisticated. John has a new friend named Jimmy, who does security work, and John is attracted to Clementine, a cocktail waitress in Reno. Sydney meets Clementine, and learns that she moonlights as a prostitute and is much less sophisticated than John. Although Clementine believes Sydney might want to use her services, he wants to build a connection between her and John. Sydney asks John to show Clementine around the town.

After receiving a frantic phone call, Sydney goes to a motel, where he finds John and Clementine holding a tourist hostage, a client of Clementine who did not pay her $300. John reveals that he and Clementine impulsively got married, and Clementine prostituted herself to the tourist, who is knocked out and handcuffed to the bed. Sydney learns that John and Clementine have called the hostage's wife, threatening to kill him if they do not get the money. After finding Jimmy's gun, Clementine tells Sydney and John that they owe the money. She soon decides to leave the motel with them after they convince her. Sydney manages to calm the situation, advising John and Clementine to leave town for their honeymoon. While leaving, Sydney removes the evidence from the motel room.

Sydney meets with Jimmy, who tells him that the couple did not contact the police. However, Jimmy explains that he is from back east, where he heard stories of how Sydney killed John's father in Atlantic City. Jimmy pulls a gun on Sydney and threatens to tell John unless Sydney gives him $10,000. They go to Sydney's suite, where Sydney gives Jimmy $6,000 cash. Jimmy leaves the suite and John calls Sydney from a roadside phone to update Sydney on their honeymoon trip. During the call, Sydney tells John that he loves him like a son. Sydney sneaks into Jimmy's house, kills Jimmy and retrieves the money. As dawn breaks, Sydney returns to the diner where he met John, where he covers the blood on his shirt cuff with his jacket sleeve.

Cast[]

Production[]

Originally titled Sydney, it was Anderson's first feature film and the expansion of the short film Cigarettes & Coffee.[4][5] The main character Sydney was named after Hall's previous role in Midnight Run. Hall, Walters, Reilly and Hoffman later appeared in Boogie Nights and Magnolia.[citation needed]

Release[]

The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.[6] In 2018, Anderson said he was working on a Blu-ray release of the film.[7]

Reception[]

Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four, writing "Movies like Hard Eight remind me of what original, compelling characters the movies can sometimes give us."[8] Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote "Hard Eight is not a movie that wants to make a grand statement. It is really little more than a small resonant mood piece whose hard-bitten characters are difficult to like. But within its self-imposed limitations, it accomplishes most of what it sets out to do. And the acting is wonderfully understated, economical and unsentimental."[9] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 81% based on 47 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's critical consensus said: "An absorbing showcase for Philip Baker Hall, Paul Thomas Anderson's feature debut is a gamble that pays off handsomely."[10] It is described by some authors as a neo-noir film.[11]

References[]

  1. ^ Hard Eight at Box Office Mojo.
  2. ^ "Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Hard Eight', AKA 'Sydney': "It's Always Good to Meet a New Friend" • Cinephilia & Beyond". Cinephilia & Beyond. 2020-09-10. Retrieved 2020-09-19.
  3. ^ Conrad, Mark T. The Philosophy of Neo-Noir, 2009. The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 081319217X.
  4. ^ Mottram, James (2006). The Sundance Kids : how the mavericks took back Hollywood. NY: Faber & Faber, Inc. p. 129. ISBN 9780865479678.
  5. ^ Waxman, Sharon R. (2005). Rebels on the backlot: six maverick directors and how they conquered the Hollywood studio system. HarperCollins. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-06-054017-3.
  6. ^ "Festival de Cannes: Hard Eight". Cannes Film Festival. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  7. ^ Anderson, Paul Thomas (January 16, 2018). "I'm Paul Thomas Anderson, writer and director of PHANTOM THREAD, AMA!". IAmA. Reddit.
  8. ^ Ebert, Roger (February 27, 1997). "Hard Eight". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC.
  9. ^ Holden, Stephen (February 28, 1997). "Suspense-Filled Puzzle Draped in a Dark Mood". The New York Times. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
  10. ^ Hard Eight at Rotten Tomatoes.
  11. ^ Conard, Mark T.; ed. (2009). The Philosophy of Neo-Noir. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 081319217X.

External links[]

Retrieved from ""