Hard Eight

Anderson, who makes as impressive a directing debut as has been seen in some time, creates a perfectly modulated mystery that doesn't even feel like one. It's a character play, and Hall, Reilly and Paltrow are so convincingly damaged they take on the properties of fine china.

Four excellent lead performances, vividly evoked ambience and a masterfully sustained mood of quiet desperation mark Sydney as an impressive piece of work.

Movies like Hard Eight remind me of what original, compelling characters the movies can sometimes give us.

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson crafts a plot of manipulation and chance, in which some zigs and zags are more convincing than others. Still, his feel for scuzz, for people living at the raw extremes of appetite, is palpable.

We accept the sincerity and altruistic motives of the aging loner he (Philip Baker Hall) portrays in this consciously spare Nevada-set sleeper. [13 March 1997, p. 8D]

The plot is bare-bones stuff, weak in story line and bereft of motivation.

Noirish thrillers live or die by their plot twists and dialogue -- talk literally being cheap compared to action shots. Unfortunately, the script by first-time filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson fails on both counts.

you get the money up front.. Hard Eight The 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.

Can see and feel the original PTA juice backed up by strong acting and a original story.

This is a classic 90' movie that includes a lot of dine-in restaurants meeting scenes, some swearing and gambling, and a lot of smoking. lol I did like all the actors in the movie, the way they act and talk to each other felt natural but the story was missing a much better ending than that, while the story revealed some twist at the end and i was looking for more thing from the movie but it suddenly ends! I still don't know what the movie was all about exactly but from what i understood is he was missing the love and affection of his children (he kinda gave a hint while talking to Clementine) and also was looking for some forgiveness for what he had done in the past so he wanted to compensate that by looking after the lost man he met at the begging. however, this movie deserves way better ending. Overall i enjoyed sitting late at night watching it and i definitely would recommend it.

It was a long time ago when I watched this film and without a doubt still a different film in PT Anderson's career because it does not feel like the rest of his filmography and yet it was a solid movie in which he got great performances from its cast in spite of the small deficiencies of the script. It was a great debut and certainly a must stop for any fan of his work.

This movie is a thrilling and entertaining road movie but it denotes a still acerb Paul Thomas Anderson that is not fully aware of his immense skills as director yet. In many parts of the movie I feel like it is not even directed by PTA and it's like someonebelse decided the editing.