Hard Eight (1997)

The Worst Film Ever

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

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.

Paul Thomas Anderson's feature film debut may not be as memorable as his subsequent works but his ability to create interesting characters and bring out compelling performances from his cast is one aspect that's evident here, along with a number of techniques that he would go on to perfect in his future films.The story of Hard Eight follows a veteran gambler named Sydney who meets a young man with no money outside a diner and decides to take him under his wing. Under Sydney's fatherly tutelage, he learns the tricks of the trade and becomes a small-time gambler himself but everything is put to test when he falls for a cocktail waitress.Written & directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Hard Eight is a feature-length adaptation of his own short film and finds the then-new filmmaker experimenting with number of storytelling techniques to carve his own distinct style, such as intersecting story lines, smooth manoeuvring of the camera & many other elements that ended up being his trademarks.The cast consists of Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow & Samuel L. Jackson, and their work is strong throughout. Hall plays the veteran gambler & delivers a measured input that presents his character in control of his situation at all times. Reilly plays his loser character with conviction, Paltrow chips in with a fragile rendition while Jackson does well with what he's given.On an overall scale, Hard Eight is a finely crafted character study that showcases Paul Thomas Anderson's filmmaking talents in a transparent manner, especially his firm grip of characters & story, but apart from its cast's honest performances, there isn't much that stands out. A silent start to what would later become one of the most acclaimed filmmaking careers, Hard Eight is definitely a must for Anderson's admirers.

I like PT Andersons films. There Will be Blood, The Master and Punch Drunk Love especially, and I'm all on for character studies but this film was bad. No story, bad acting, bad dialogue, unrealistic characters, the whole shebang. It was his first film and it seems he lost creative control over it, but it shouldn't get a free ride just cos it's PT Anderson. It's bad. Maybe not 1star bad but I'm bringing down the average to even out the good 7, 8 and 9s from the fanboys who don't know better. Avoid. These next few lines are just to fill out the review and meet the 10 line minimum needed to get accepted as there is really nothing more to say about the film. Seriously.

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.