Something to watch tonight: Thursday 7 August

Hard Eight (Anderson, 1996)

Some of you may know that I’m lucky enough that two of the remaining companies who distribute physical media in Aotearoa send me samples for review every now and then, but because not every reader here still plays DVD, Blu-ray or UHD, I ration those reviews out a bit.

This has come to bite me, though, because when I was looking for shiny silver disc to recommend here yesterday, the first three I chose were already out of print. When companies say “limited edition”, they really mean it.

But Paul Thomas Anderson’s debut feature film, Hard Eight, is still available, although it’s only the standard edition, not the collector’s version with the cardboard slip cover.

It has taken me a long time to get to Hard Eight, which is a surprise considering I am a fan of — and actually own — several of his other pictures. It’s a drama set in the seamy underbelly of the gambling life — not even Vegas, it’s mostly located in the second-tier mecca of Reno.

John C. Reilly plays John, a young down-and-out who is taken under the wing of an experienced old-timer called Sydney (Philip Baker Hall). The reason why isn’t really clear. Sydney doesn’t seem like the sentimental type and he also doesn’t appear to see John as a financial investment.

But he shows him the ropes and when we jump forward to a year later, we see John making a passable living as a professional gambler, although his increasing confidence means he has started taking chances that Sydney doesn’t approve of — including a friendship with casino security consultant Samuel L. Jackson and a romantic relationship with waitress and hooker Gwyneth Paltrow.

When one of Paltrow’s tricks goes south, Sydney has to step in and fix things but the rails are about to be well and truly run off.

Hard Eight shows off Anderson’s confidence with both camera and actors. Hall’s career had been low key up to this point¹ but he would go on to work with Anderson again on Magnolia and Boogie Nights. Reilly was also relatively unknown at this point but is terrific as a young man who vacillates between being cocky and desperate for approval.

Another reason I wanted to watch this was we have just finished a run of rewatching Soderbergh’s Oceans films — there’s a recent box set of all three on 4K UHD — and I was keen to stay in the casino caper milieu but Hard Eight really is the other side of the coin. Or should I say chip?

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Where to watch Hard Eight