Review of Hard Eight (1997) by Eric P — 01 Mar 2008

All of P.T. Anderson's films to date have been an homage to one great director or another -- Magnolia was Robert Altman, There Will Be Blood was John Houston (and Kubrick to some extent), Boogie Nights was Scorsese, and Hard Eight is Jean-Pierre Melville. Anderson beautifully captures the steely calm and emphasis on body language that Melville's noirs like the fantastic Bob le flambeur do.

Hard Eight is not what one might expect. It's a noir, but it doesn't focus on plot twists, conspiracies, and the underworld. All these elements are present, but they are very much implied and understated. We know that something lurks in Philip Baker Hall's past, but we are never told what. The intrigue of the first half of the film is trying to discover what relationship holds Philip Baker Hall and John C. Reilly's characters together, and what their past is. We never find out most of what we expect to, but that's the whole point. The film is not centered so much around the plot as it is about these characters and how they interact.

It is particularly impressive that Anderson managed to gather such an incredible cast for his first major feature. Perhaps it is an eye for talent. Lucky for him actors like John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Philip Seymour Hoffman were only just making it big at the time, so they were still willing to do a low budget production like Hard Eight. Philip Baker Hall was, of course, an already well-established actor, and his performance here is fantastic. He acts so well with his eyes that he barely needs to say a word for us to understand.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of my favourite actors, makes a brief supporting appearance here, and he steals the show. Playing an obnoxious Craps player, he is the perfect counter to Philip Baker Hall's steely coolness. Baker Hall plays this scene almost completely silently, but his eyes say it all. The only words he utters are his bet on the "hard eight".

The film's only flaw is that the pacing is a little too sluggish at times. Anderson seems to be incapable of bringing the energy that some of the casino sequences promise into other parts of the film. Nonetheless, this is a solid first effort as a filmmaker and really showed off P.T. Anderson's immense talent early on.