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the audience applauded

A Masterpiece!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

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.

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.

'Hard Eight' may not be one of Paul Thomas Anderson's best, his later films being more complex and more refined, but even when Anderson was not at his best he was much better than most directors in that position.For a feature film debut, 'Hard Eight' is still very promising. It does have moments of lethargic moments, the odd clunkiness and the ending is somewhat anti-climactic, but the potential seen throughout the film is enormous and from the start it is obvious that 'Hard Eight' knows its own strengths and makes the most out of them.It looks impeccable, even when not very experienced in directing at this particular point Anderson's distinctive style is evident here with the long takes and tracking shots that suggest a Martin Scorsese influence. It's a beautifully shot film, and even if not as refined as his later films Anderson shows great promise as a director, showing a knack for visual style and excellent direction of actors. The music is suitably atmospheric, sometimes quirky, sometimes ominous and sometimes elegant.Much of the script is very naturalistic and remarkably feels like the characters are talking like real people. It's tautly structured and thought-provoking too. 'Hard Eight' is a film quite light on plot, but rich in characterisation, not a bad thing considering that it is essentially a character study. The storytelling is still quite nicely done though, and while the characters are not the easiest to like there is a compelling realism about them and they're interesting.Phillip Baker-Hall is magnetic in the lead role, in a performance of towering sincerity, while John C. Reilly matches him very well with an appealing gawky charm, Gwyneth Paltrow is charming and moving and Samuel L. Jackson brings plenty of flesh and succeeds in making the character too much of a retread of previous characters. Philip Seymour Hoffmann makes a very entertaining if somewhat too brief appearance.Overall, very promising debut from Anderson though he went on to even better things with meatier material and an even more refined style. As is evident from the superb 'Boogie Nights'. 8/10 Bethany Cox

I'm a bit ambivalent here. Like young Tarantino, it moves the story by gaps away from story, small talk around a table over coffee or drinks, omitting and jumping ahead. Like Jarmusch, it has a languid air and characters shown to be hurt but still retain their kindness. He may have known Kaurismaki or not. Scorsese definitely.Reservoir Dogs was upending the ordinary heist movie by wandering around the main piece, this one is upending the casino movie by setting us up to imagine some cunning scheme that will maybe backfire, but what really backfires is that these people aren't cunning, aren't in calculating control of their emotions. The only 'scheme' is that the old fox was trying to set up a happy life for him, subtly guiding the narrative, to make up for what he took away. Like all these filmmakers, PT knows all the different bits from movies, as movies, and leverages a tentative control over both camera and narrative. He would later leverage more and more of that control in his art, size, strident ambition, first via Scorsese, then Altman, then Kubrick. In fact, as a matter of forces that move the world, I prefer this to some of his later projects. It's all very well prepared and he's good with actors but, unlike Altman, it doesn't break away from that control, it stays in my eyes as a certain kind of film that he's trying to make. It was early but you can tell even here, he wants a music that is tentative, flows and surrounds but tries to construct it by plucking each note carefully instead of allowing his hands to dance along the keys. It's the most talented guy in his film school showing that he has skill.(It's also mentioned as modern noir by some and that's how I came to it, more apt to simply call it about messed up lives and it has something to do with a crime. Noir is a different thing altogether.)