HARD EIGHT

"Hard Eight" is one of the great feature film debuts in all of cinema and it's by possibly the greatest director working in America today yet a lot of people don't really know it. For most people, Paul Thomas Anderson's career didn't begin until "Boogie Nights". The theme of "Hard Eight" isn't gambling, (though it's one of the most addictive films about gambling ever made), but relationships and it's a masterclass in great acting. You might say it also launched what became something of a stock company for Anderson and gave Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly and Gwyneth Paltrow three of the best parts they ever had. The cast also includes a terrific Samuel L. Jackson and a then unknown but equally terrific Philip Seymour Hoffman and is superbly shot by Anderson regular Robert Elswitt. While all these factors add up to making this a great debut, (anyone of them on their own would score a perfect ten), ultimately it's the depth of Anderson's screenplay that carries it. It's a thriller, of course, but not in the way you might imagine. There's more psychological depth in any single frame here than in a dozen more conventional heist movies, (and just so you know, this isn't a heist movie). Totally unmissable.