Line #26 Film/HardEight


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hero_eb19970227reviews702270303ar.jpg]]
2
3	''Hard Eight'' is a 1996 crime thriller written and directed by Creator/PaulThomasAnderson. It was his first feature film. It stars Creator/PhilipBakerHall, Creator/JohnCReilly, Creator/GwynethPaltrow and Creator/SamuelLJackson.
4
5	Sydney (Hall) is a ProfessionalGambler who finds John (Reilly) outside a diner one day, broke and alone. Sydney offers to help John find a way to make some money; John at first resists, thinking Sydney is a DirtyOldMan, but eventually agrees to be helped. [[TimeSkip Two years later]], Sydney has become a ParentalSubstitute for John, and the two are inseparable. John ends up falling in love with, and marrying, Clementine (Paltrow), a cocktail waitress/prostitute. However, they get into a bad situation that Sydney has to help them out of. To make matters, worse, John's friend Jimmy (Jackson) knows about [[DarkSecret Sydney's past]], and knows just why Sydney has taken John under his wing.
6
7	Creator/PhilipSeymourHoffman, who would become Anderson's most frequent collaborator before his death, appears in one scene as an obnoxious gambler.
8
9	----
10	!!Tropes used in this film:
11
12	* AffectionateNickname: Clementine calls Sydney "captain", because, as she explains, he looks like a captain on a ship. Sydney accepts this, but he gently chides John when he tries to use it on him.
13	* TheAtoner: [[spoiler: Sydney. He killed John's father, and is trying to make it up to him by being a ParentalSubstitute]].
14	* {{Blackmail}}: Played with; Sydney thinks at first Jimmy is trying to do this to him because he helped Clementine and John with their HostageSituation, but Jimmy doesn't care about that and is actually glad Sydney stepped in to help. No, the real reason Jimmy wants to blackmail Sydney is because [[spoiler: Jimmy knows Sydney killed John's father, and John doesn't know]].
15	* BookEnds: The movie opens and closes with scenes at the same diner--the sequence beginning with a nearly identical shot of Sydney walking towards the entrance.
16	* CallForward: Or maybe a MythologyGag in reverse. In any case, Jimmy, in his confrontation with Sydney, says "Shit, man. I know all those guys you know. Floyd Gondolli, Jimmy Gator, Mumbles O'Malley." Floyd Gondolli and Jimmy Gator are the names of the characters Phillip Baker Hall played in Anderson's next two movies, ''Film/BoogieNights'' and ''Film/{{Magnolia}}''.
17	* TheCameo: P.T. Anderson's father, Creator/ErnieAnderson, who died one year after this movie was released, has a brief cameo as the man standing in front of John when the matches in John's pocket catch fire.
18	* CastingGag: Creator/PhilipBakerHall's character Sydney is intended to be an expansion of his mob-affiliated character also named Sidney in the film ''Film/MidnightRun''. Director Anderson was fascinated by the character and his desire to know more about who he was led him to write the role. This also, in a way, could be seen as an inter-film example of AscendedExtra.
19	* CoolOldGuy: Sydney. He is even referred to as such by Jimmy in his ReasonWhyYouSuckSpeech, though in a mocking way.
20	* DeadpanSnarker: Sydney's endlessly one for a witty turn of phrase.
21	* EpicTrackingShot: The one in this movie isn't as long as the ones in P.T. Anderson's other movies, but it's still pretty impressive, following Sydney as he walks across a crowded casino floor.
22	* EverybodySmokes: Everybody. Absolutely everybody.
23	* FilmNoir: The laconic AntiHero with a DarkAndTroubledPast that threatens to catch up to him, a regular guy drawn into morally...''interesting'' territory by the promises of success, and Clementine is even a mild take on a FemmeFatale.
24	* FourthDateMarriage: Clementine and John have only known each other a couple of months before they get married.
25	* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Played with; Clementine is actually warm and gracious towards Sydney and John. However, she's rather adamant about getting paid on the job, which leads to...
26	* HostageSituation: [[spoiler: John and Clementine end up taking one of her clients hostage when he refuses to pay, and it's up to Sydney to fix things]].
27	* JumpCut: John initially suspects Sydney might be looking for gay sex, so when he gets in Sydney's car he insists on riding in the back. John admires the car for a little bit and then asks Sydney to pull over, and then there's a Jump Cut to John in the front seat next to Sydney.
28	* ParentalSubstitute: As stated above, Sydney becomes this to John. Also, to a lesser extent, to Clementine.
29	* ProfessionalGambler: Sydney, and he mentors John into one, himself. Jimmy is apparently one, himself.
30	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Jimmy chews Sydney out, explaining that it was perhaps vanity to expect [[spoiler: to get away with killing John's father without any repercussions]].
31	* RetiredBadass: Sydney. Sydney is whiling away his senior years playing keno and mentoring John, but Jimmy finds out that in the past, Sydney was a real hardass. He does not draw the proper conclusion from this knowledge.
32	* ScaryBlackMan: Samuel L. Jackson in his sweet spot. Jimmy wears a leather coat and leather driving gloves which only make him scarier.
33	* SympatheticMurderer: [[spoiler: YMMV, but by the time we find out Sydney murdered John's father, we have also learned he is a sadly estranged father of two, now a loner who primarily whiles away his life's third act making petty gambles, and that he has bent over backwards attempting to fill the space he tore in John's life all those years ago.]]
34	* TitleDrop: Jimmy refers to seeing Sydney betting on a "hard eight" (two fours) at the craps table, and Sydney also bets on Philip Seymour Hoffman's character making that roll. Near the end of the movie, Jimmy rolls a hard eight and cleans up. (The title was a case of ExecutiveMeddling, as Anderson wanted to call the film ''Sydney'').
35	* TooDumbToLive: Jimmy says to the man he’s blackmailing, “I’m not a killer… like you.” He does not consider the implications of that statement.
36	* WhamLine: [[spoiler: "You shot his father in the face."]]

Context Film / HardEight