Hard Eight Movie Review

Hard Eight (1996)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Hard Eight begins with an elderly character by the name of Sydney spotting a young man called John, seemingly down on his luck and offers him a cup of coffee. As they begin talking it becomes clear that John has lost money gambling and Sydney sympathises with the young man and offers to take him back to Vegas to help him get his money back.

We then go 2 years down the line, Sydney and John have become partners of sorts and frequent casinos and make a good living gambling with the knowledge Sydney has shared. We then meet two characters called Clementine and Jimmy and this is when things start to go downhill. I won’t say any more.

Hard Eight is at its core a character study of Sydney, we find out that he no longer has contact with his children which explains why he has taken John under his wing the way he has and why he is very fatherly with Clementine when she comes into the story. We also find out about his somewhat corrupt past which I feel there is a great deal of guilt about. I have to say that Philip Baker Hall does a great job of juggling the complexities of his character, he is both wise and vulnerable at the same time.

Hard Eight is Paul Thomas Anderson’s directorial debut and it is impressive for a first film, I think it is shot really well, it’s intense when it needs to be but at the same time there is a real calmness to the film. You can really see him honing his skills that we would later see in full force in his next two films Boogie Nights and Magnolia.

I do think the film is flawed, the storytelling is clunky at points and it all seems to be stitched together unlike later PTA films that flow effortlessly. It is known that the screenplay was put together relatively fast and the director had little say when it came to final cut so maybe those factors are at play.

So to summarise, it is a great effort for a first feature length project and a great central performance by Philip Baker Hall, there is a nice energy in the camera movement throughout, although the storytelling is slightly slapdash and it is a shame PTA wasn't given more say in the final cut, I do feel needed more time to be perfected.

6.5/10

18/11/2015