| | | When good luck is a long shot, you have to hedge your bets.
Features: DVD, Pan and Scan (TV Format), Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.35:1, Dolby Surround Sound, English, Subtitled
Sydney (Philip Baker Hall, Kiss Of Death) is a deadpan professional gambler who operates in the twilight casino world of Reno. He takes John (John C. Reilly, Dolores Claiborne), a younger and somewhat naive man, under his wing after what appears to be a chance encounter. As their relationship develops, John's confidence grows under Sydney's tutelage. He falls in love with a waitress and sometime hooker, Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow, Academy Award-Winner Shakespeare In Love), and in with bad company in the form of Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson, A Time To Kill), an obnoxious and dangerous smalltime crook who openly challenges Sydney's influence.
"Intelligent and engaging. Hard Eight is worth betting on." Mademoiselle
"Two thumbs up!" Siskel & Ebert
"Gwyneth Paltrow in her best role yet." John Anderson, Los Angeles Times
Editor's Note
Sydney (Philip Baker Hall), a mysterious professional gambler, befriends John (John C. Reilly), a young man in trouble, and teaches him the ways of making a living in the casinos of Reno. John gets involved with Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow), a pretty waitress who doubles as a prostitute, and Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson), a two-faced criminal. When trouble erupts, suddenly Sydney has to rescue his young friend, but a secret from his past threatens to destroy everything he has tried to build up. Director Paul Thomas Anderson's highly acclaimed debut feature (based on the films of Jonathan Demme and John Cassavetes) is a tight, intricate film noir character study with a more disciplined plot than his later, more expansive films. The film also features excellent work from his four actors, particularly Hall as the experienced, world-weary Sydney, and fascinating details about the lowlife world the characters inhabit. HARD EIGHT originated as a short film, CIGARETTES AND COFFEE, that Anderson developed at the Sundance Film Institute.
Plot Summary
HARD EIGHT is a tale of greed, murder, and deceit in Las Vegas. When an ex-hit man turned professional gambler takes on a young protégé, he deals into more than he expected when the younger man brings aboard a part-time hooker and a two-bit swindler, both with agendas of their own.
| Features | Subtitles: English, Spanish | | Theatrical Trailers | | Language: English Two-Channel Surround | | Sundance Institute Filmmaker Lab Scenes | | New Director-Approved Transfer | | Scene Selections | | Full-Screen And Widescreen Formats | | Two Filmmakers' Commentaries | | Deleted Scene - "The Kiss" |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Columbia Tri-Star |
| Release Date: 5/13/2008 |
| Running Time: 101 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1997 | | Catalog ID: 81039 | | UPC: 00043396810396 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English | | Available Subtitles: English, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Independent Spirit Awards (1998) | | | Robert Elswit, Nominee, Best Cinematographer | | | Paul Thomas Anderson, Robert Jones, John S. Lyons, Nominee, Best First Feature | | | Paul Thomas Anderson, Nominee, Best First Screenplay | | | Philip Baker Hall, Nominee, Best Male Lead | | | Samuel L. Jackson, Nominee, Best Supporting Male |
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| | Professional Reviews | Sight and Sound
"...Evocative, memorable....In HARD EIGHT, Anderson and his brilliant quartet prove that they know a great many questions..." 01/01/1998 p.44USA Today
"...Jackson play one of his scarier characters....[Hall is] superb here..." -- 3 out of 4 stars 03/13/1997 p.8D Variety
"Four excellent lead performances, vividly evoked ambience and a masterfully sustained mood of quiet desperation mark SYDNEY as an impressive piece of work..." 02/05/1996 New York Times
"...[A] beautifully controlled, slow-moving film....The acting is wonderfully understated, economical and unsentimental..." 02/28/1997 p.C7 Los Angeles Times
"...A perfectly modulated mystery....With some terrific hand-held camera work by Robert Elswit..." 02/28/1997 p.F2 Chicago Sun-Times
"...It's about these specific people in this place and time, and that's why it's so good: It listens and sees....[Hall gives] another great performance..." 02/28/1997 p.37 Boxoffice Magazine 0 of 10
Hard Eight (aka Sydney) is a very promising debut for American writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson. The film is a well-written character study set in the casino world of Reno. At Cannes, Anderson said that Hard Eight had been influenced by John Cassavetes, Jonathan Demme's Melvin and Howard and the French film noir Bob le Flambeur. Illustrious models, to be sure, but ones the young writer/director very nearly lives up to... Anderson's screenplay is full of superb dialogue and has some unexpected twists. While focusing on the complicated relationships of his characters, Anderson's direction successfully makes a virtue of necessity, conveying a seedy casino atmosphere on the film's small budget. The four main actors (Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson flesh out the cast as other figures in John's life) are impressive, with Hall's performance especially memorable. - Ed Scheid
New York Times 0 of 10
As Hard Eight tracks the mentor-protege relationship that Sydney cultivates with a gravity befitting Rod Serling introducing The Twilight Zone, the movie smells like one of David Mamet's fiendish stories of grifters embroiled in tricky games of cat and mouse. But Paul Thomas Anderson, who wrote and directed the movie, which is his first feature film, has other things on his mind. Sydney's motives aren't revealed until the film is almost over. Let it suffice to say they have to do with guilt and with a warped, grandiose sense of honor. One of the many strengths of this beautifully controlled, slow-moving film is that the revelations come as a complete surprise at the same time that they make psychological sense. Not only that, but Hall's portrayal of a mysterious father figure whose air of unbreachable solemnity borders on caricature is in keeping with who Sydney turns out to be... This is a film in which every beat of dialogue, every camera angle and every note of slinky background lounge music has been calculated to create a mood of faintly sleazy cool. The story is set during Christmas. And in one scene the sound of a dead-voiced lounge singer groaning "O Little Town of Bethlehem" leaks into the corners of the film, adding just the right note of queasiness and bad faith. 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. Hall's Sydney is a sleek 90s version of an Edward G. Robinson character playing his cards extremely close to the vest without even a hint of vulnerability on his ravaged face. Reilly and Ms. Paltrow play impulsive, not-very-bright people who are too buffeted by life to be able to plan ahead or even to think clearly in moments of crisis. But instead of telegraphing their characters' limitations, they allow us to discover them for ourselves. The role of Jimmy is one of [Samuel L.] Jackson's scarier characters, and this brilliant actor inhabits all four corners of his jittery, avaricious personality. When he and Sydney finally clash, the movie makes its darkest, cleverest turn into film-noir nightmare. - Stephen Holden
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