peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2012 12 25 HardEight

Sydney (or Hard Eight)

Tue, Dec 25, 2012./noise/movies | Link

Paul Thomas Anderson's first feature, I think. The cast is small (John C Reilly, Philip Baker Hall as Sydney, Samuel L Jackson, Philip Seymour Hoffman) and made me wonder why Gwyneth Paltrow (here a confused cocktail waitress / prostitute) wasn't in Magnolia. The story shuffles between various places of desperation: the gambling dens of Nevada, the seedy motel, the gangsta car. Sydney is not that awesome a character to study but the whole thing is well constructed.