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17
88 Minutes
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Paranoid Park
82
Taxi to the Dark Side
80
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
79
Visitor, The
79
Iron Man
78
Before I Forget
77
Rape of Europa, The
75
Young@Heart
75
Boy A
72
Lou Reed's Berlin
70
Outsourced
69
Redbelt
67
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
67
Snow Angels
66
Son of Rambow
65
Married Life
65
Water Lilies
64
Fall, The
62
Kabluey
57
Forbidden Kingdom, The
56
Leatherheads
56
Then She Found Me
55
Baby Mama
55
Pathology
54
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
54
CSNY: Déjà Vu
53
Sex and the City: The Movie
52
Mother of Tears, The
51
Finding Amanda
51
Promotion, The
48
Run, Fat Boy, Run
46
Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
45
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
37
Made of Honor
37
Speed Racer
36
What Happens in Vegas...
34
Happening, The
32
Chapter 27
31
Deception
30
Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour
27
How to Rob a Bank
24
Love Guru, The
22
Postal
17
88 Minutes
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Hard Eight
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
 |
|
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for strong language, some violence and sexuality
Starring
Philip Baker Hall,
John C. Reilly,
Gwyneth Paltrow,
Samuel L. Jackson,
F. William Parker,
Philip Seymour Hoffman,
Nathanael Cooper,
and
Wynn White
Sydney (Hall) is a poker-faced professional gambler with a soft heart for a hard luck story. He plays guardian angel to unlucky John (Reilly) and a hooker, Clementine (Paltrow), whom he grows to love like family. When John's and Clementine's honeymoon night leads to a disastrous hostage situation, Sydney takes care of it, as usual. But when slick casino pro Jimmy (Jackson) threatens to reveal a secret from Sydney's past that could destroy his relationship with the newlyweds, Sydney decides to hedge his bets and not leave anything to chance. (Sony)
| GENRE(S): |
Crime
|
Drama
|
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Paul Thomas Anderson
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Paul Thomas Anderson
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: August 5, 2003
Video: July 7, 1998
Theatrical: February 28, 1997
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
102 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
Orginally titled "Sydney"

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
One of the best films of the year.

100
Los Angeles Times
John Anderson
Anderson, who makes as impressive a directing debut as has been seen in some time, creates a perfectly modulated mystery that doesn't even feel like one. It's a character play, and Hall, Reilly and Paltrow are so convincingly damaged they take on the properties of fine china.

90
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Impressive for its lean and unblemished storytelling, but even more so for its performances.

90
Variety
Joe Leydon
Four excellent lead performances, vividly evoked ambience and a masterfully sustained mood of quiet desperation mark Sydney as an impressive piece of work.

88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Movies like Hard Eight remind me of what original, compelling characters the movies can sometimes give us.

80
The New York Times
Stephen Holden
The role of Jimmy is one of Mr. Jackson's scarier characters, and this brilliant actor inhabits all four corners of his jittery, avaricious personality. When he and Sydney finally clash, the movie makes its darkest, cleverest turn into film-noir nightmare.

80
Washington Post
Kevin McManus
Paul Thomas Anderson shows off the same sort of quirky smarts that Joel and Ethan Coen did in "Blood Simple."

75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
There's something almost hypnotic about the way Hard Eight develops -- even in its slowest, most tedious moments, it keeps our attention.

75
USA Today
Mike Clark
We accept the sincerity and altruistic motives of the aging loner he (Philip Baker Hall) portrays in this consciously spare Nevada-set sleeper. [13 March 1997, p. 8D]
75
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson crafts a plot of manipulation and chance, in which some zigs and zags are more convincing than others. Still, his feel for scuzz, for people living at the raw extremes of appetite, is palpable.

67
Austin Chronicle
Russell Smith
Hall, one of our least appreciated great actors, is mesmerizing as Sydney.

63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
The plot is bare-bones stuff, weak in story line and bereft of motivation.

50
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Ultimately, the material is so familiar that it's hard to work up any enthusiasm for another trip though the seamy underside of glittering gaming life.

25
San Francisco Chronicle
Ruthe Stein
Noirish thrillers live or die by their plot twists and dialogue -- talk literally being cheap compared to action shots. Unfortunately, the script by first-time filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson fails on both counts.


The average user rating for this movie is 9.5 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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