Hard Eight (film)
Encyclopedia
Hard Eight is a 1996 American crime
Crime film
Crime films are films which focus on the lives of criminals. The stylistic approach to a crime film varies from realistic portrayals of real-life criminal figures, to the far-fetched evil doings of imaginary arch-villains. Criminal acts are almost always glorified in these movies.- Plays and films...

 thriller film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson
Paul Thomas Anderson is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. He has written and directed five feature films: Hard Eight , Boogie Nights , Magnolia , Punch-Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood...

, starring Philip Baker Hall
Philip Baker Hall
-Early life:Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor...

, John C. Reilly
John C. Reilly
John Christopher Reilly, Jr. is an American film and theater actor, singer, and comedian. Debuting in Casualties of War in 1989, he is one of several actors whose careers were launched by Brian De Palma. To date, he has appeared in more than fifty films, including three separate films in 2002...

, Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Kate Paltrow is an American actress and singer. She made her acting debut on stage in 1990 and started appearing in films in 1991. After appearing in several films throughout the decade, Paltrow gained early notice for her work in films such as Se7en and Emma...

 and Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel Leroy Jackson is an American film and television actor and film producer. After becoming involved with the Civil Rights Movement, he moved on to acting in theater at Morehouse College, and then films. He had several small roles such as in the film Goodfellas before meeting his mentor,...

. There are also brief appearances by Robert Ridgely
Robert Ridgely
Robert Ridgely was an American actor and vocal artist, known for both on-camera roles and extensive voice-over work.-Career:...

, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...

, and Melora Walters
Melora Walters
Melora Walters is an American actress.-Personal life:Walters was born in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia to American parents. She was partly raised there and in Holland. Walters attended high school at Lake Forest Academy-Ferry Hall in Lake Forest, Illinois...

.

The film, originally titled Sydney, was Anderson's first feature; Hall, Reilly, Ridgely, Hoffman and Walters acted in Anderson's subsequent films. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard
Un Certain Regard
Un Certain Regard is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's Official Selection. It is run at the Salle Debussy, parallel to the competition for the Palme d'Or.This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob...

 section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival
1996 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Francis Ford Coppola *Nathalie Baye *Greta Scacchi, actrice *Michael Ballhaus *Henry Chapier *Atom Egoyan *Eiko Ishioka *Krzysztof Piesiewicz *Antonio Tabucchi...

.

Plot

Sydney (Philip Baker Hall
Philip Baker Hall
-Early life:Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor...

), a gambler in his 60s, finds a young man, John (John C. Reilly
John C. Reilly
John Christopher Reilly, Jr. is an American film and theater actor, singer, and comedian. Debuting in Casualties of War in 1989, he is one of several actors whose careers were launched by Brian De Palma. To date, he has appeared in more than fifty films, including three separate films in 2002...

), sitting forlornly outside a diner and offers to give him a cigarette and buy him a cup of coffee. Sydney learns that John is trying to raise enough money for his mother's burial. He offers to drive him to Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...

 and teach him how to make some money and survive. Skeptical at first, John agrees.

Two years later, John, having gotten the money for the funeral, has stayed in Reno and become Sydney's protégé. John has a new friend named Jimmy, who does security work, and is attracted to Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Kate Paltrow is an American actress and singer. She made her acting debut on stage in 1990 and started appearing in films in 1991. After appearing in several films throughout the decade, Paltrow gained early notice for her work in films such as Se7en and Emma...

), a cocktail waitress. John and Clementine get married, but later Sydney gets a frantic late-night phone call. He arrives at a motel to find the newlyweds holding hostage a customer refusing to pay Clementine, who moonlights
Moonlighting
Moonlighting is the practice of holding a second job . It may also refer to:* Moonlighting , a 1982 drama film by Jerzy Skolimowski* Moonlighting , broadcast in 1985–1989 and starring Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd...

 as a prostitute.

Sydney manages to smooth the situation over. He then advises John and Clementine to leave town and head to faraway Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls
The Niagara Falls, located on the Niagara River draining Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, is the collective name for the Horseshoe Falls and the adjacent American Falls along with the comparatively small Bridal Veil Falls, which combined form the highest flow rate of any waterfalls in the world and has...

 for their honeymoon. After the two leave, Sydney is confronted by Jimmy, who demands a large amount of money. He knows something about Sydney and threatens to tell John if necessary -- that Sydney is the one who killed John's father.

Sydney acquiesces and pays the money, but later sneaks into Jimmy's house and shoots him. He then returns to the same diner where he met John. The film ends with Sydney covering up blood on his shirt cuff.

Cast

  • Philip Baker Hall
    Philip Baker Hall
    -Early life:Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor...

     as Sydney Brown
  • John C. Reilly
    John C. Reilly
    John Christopher Reilly, Jr. is an American film and theater actor, singer, and comedian. Debuting in Casualties of War in 1989, he is one of several actors whose careers were launched by Brian De Palma. To date, he has appeared in more than fifty films, including three separate films in 2002...

     as John Finnegan
  • Gwyneth Paltrow
    Gwyneth Paltrow
    Gwyneth Kate Paltrow is an American actress and singer. She made her acting debut on stage in 1990 and started appearing in films in 1991. After appearing in several films throughout the decade, Paltrow gained early notice for her work in films such as Se7en and Emma...

     as Clementine
  • Samuel L. Jackson
    Samuel L. Jackson
    Samuel Leroy Jackson is an American film and television actor and film producer. After becoming involved with the Civil Rights Movement, he moved on to acting in theater at Morehouse College, and then films. He had several small roles such as in the film Goodfellas before meeting his mentor,...

     as Jimmy
  • Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Craps player
  • Robert Ridgely
    Robert Ridgely
    Robert Ridgely was an American actor and vocal artist, known for both on-camera roles and extensive voice-over work.-Career:...

     as Keno Manager
  • Melora Walters
    Melora Walters
    Melora Walters is an American actress.-Personal life:Walters was born in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia to American parents. She was partly raised there and in Holland. Walters attended high school at Lake Forest Academy-Ferry Hall in Lake Forest, Illinois...

     as Prostitute

Connections to future Anderson films

In the scene where Jimmy tells Sydney that he knows about the murder of John's father, he mentions that he heard about it via some other men, including "Floyd Gondolli" and "Jimmy Gator." These are the names of characters that Philip Baker Hall would later play in Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights is a 1997 drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Set in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley, the script focuses on a young nightclub dishwasher who becomes a popular star of pornographic films, and chronicles his rise and fall from the Golden Age of Porn of the 1970s...

and Magnolia
Magnolia (film)
Magnolia is a 1999 American drama film written, produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, narrated by Ricky Jay, and starring Tom Cruise, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, and Jason Robards in his last feature film appearance...

, respectively.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK