Hard Eight (1996) - Anderson debuts with downbeat crime drama

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 + Best Box Office Disaster of the Year + Best Crime Drama of the Year + Best Debut of the Year + Worst $ Return of the Year: 0.13 Times the Cost + Best Independent Movie of the Year + Best Nevada Movie of the Year + Most Undeserved Flop of the Year

 

The iconic dark green of the dice table makes up the background on this simple poster for Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight

Sydney is an oldtimer and a veteran gambler, who knows some shortcuts in the business. He now takes the younger John under his wings, who finds himself in trouble, and later also the waitress and prostitute Clementine ...

 

Hard Eight is written and directed by debuting Californian master filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson (Punch Drunk Love (2002)).

Anderson establishes an oppressive mood across this well-acted, downbeat, short-story-like tale, which also benefits from strong photography (by Robert Elswit (Syriana (2005))) and music (score by Jon Brion (Step Brothers (2008)) and Michael Penn (Boogie Nights (1997))).

We accept and embrace spending the running time here with these hard-pressed, desperate (loser) characters, mainly because Philip Baker Hall (The Zodiac (2005)), John C. Reilly (Rubberhead (2014, TV movie)), Gwyneth Palthrow (The Good Night (2007)), Samuel L. Jackson (The Incredibles (2004)) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Culture (1997, short)) are so absolutely excellent in their character portrayals.

 

Related posts:

Paul Thomas Anderson: 2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Phantom Thread (2017) - Anderson's exquisite drama of an English dressmaker and his Alma 

The Master (2012) - Anderson's stunning post-war reflection 
Boogie Nights (1997) - Anderson's irresistible porn 'Casino'

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

 

Here is a 3-minute clip from the film

 

Cost: 3 mil. $

Box office: 222k $ (North America only)

= Box office disaster (returned 0.07 times its cost in North America; projected total return of 0.13 times the cost)

[Hard Eight premiered 20 January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 102 minutes. It is based on Anderson's own short film Cigarettes & Coffee (1993). Shooting took place in 1995 in Nevada. The film opened #27 to a 69k $ first weekend in 29 theaters in North America, where it grossed 222k $. It was also released in a handful of other markets, but grosses are regrettably not reported. If the film made a final gross of 400k $ it, would still rank as a box office disaster. It was nominated for 5 Independent Spirit awards, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch higher than this one. Anderson returned with Michael Penn: Try (1997, music video) and theatrically with Boogie Nights (1997). Hall returned in The Little Death (1996); Reilly in Boys (1996); and Palthrow in The Pallbearer (1996). Hard Eight is certified fresh at 81 % with a 6.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Hard Eight? 

The Pledge (2001) - Maddening, realistic, unpleasant child-killer story

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Jack Nicholson as the restless cop on the poster for Sean Penn's The Pledge

The Pledge is Sean Penn's (Into the Wild (2007)) third foray into directing following The Indian Runner (1991) and The Crossing Guard (1995), which is also with Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt (2002)). Of the two, I definitely prefer The Crossing Guard, but it may be a matter of taste more than quality difference.
The Pledge is based on Swiss author/playwright Friedrich Dürrenmatt's novella Das Versprechen:Requiem for den Kriminalroman/The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel (1958), which has been adapted before in Germany and the UK.
It is a story of a retiring cop in a country county, who on the eve of his retirement party helps out at a crime scene, where a little girl has been found ravaged and murdered. He pledges to the girl's grieving mother (Patricia Clarkson (The East (2013)), who is strong in the part) that he will find the killer, and then watches at the station, as the accused, mentally disadvantaged Indian (Benicio Del Toro) is more or less coaxed into an ambiguous confession by a colleague with a hard-on for closing the case (Aaron Eckhart), before the Indian SPOILER steals a gun and blows his brains out. Jerry (Nicholson) is retired, but he can't let the case rest: What if the killer wasn't this Indian? What if the monster is still out there?
The story is told so that we have no problem understanding why this will not let Jerry's mind rest. An important decision in that regard is that we see crime scene photos of a similar crime a little while into the film, which is truly horrifying and aligns us with Jerry completely.
But then kicks in the Requiem for the Detective Novel-part in The Pledge, because Jerry's efforts are essentially SPOILER fruitless: His hunger for justice and peace of mind turns into an obsession and eventually crumbles his mind completely, as we see in the film's last shots of Nicholson spazzing out. Even more maddening is the fact that we see that he was close to the solution and salvation, - but just missed it. It bears reminiscence to the ending of Penn's later Northern tale, Into the Wild, in which the lead Christopher dies of sickness and hunger isolated in an abandoned bus in Alaska much closer to civilization than he thinks he is.

The details:

The Pledge is well-played, although I think there was a single mis-tune to Nicholson's performance, when he has to make us and some colleagues understand why this case is so obsessively important, and I could see the actor taking the leap to up the stakes for his character, but a little too late. - He's good in the film, granted, but it's not among his greatest performances. Also the character seems somewhat lean: When asked about why he isn't married at one point, he replies that he's a "two-time loser". - Which could mean at least two and really several things, but we never learn. - Never learn much about Jerry besides his obsession. In that sense, The Pledge remains strictly a detective movie and stays clear of drama-elements about the character's past, but since it is a detective story about not finding a solution, (although we as audiences do see the solution), it is an almost maddeningly frustrating time.
- Also because of the subject matter, child abduction, -rape and -murder, which made me uncomfortable before the film was also about the killer being an elusive son of a *****, AND Jack Nicholson losing his mind. Thiscombined weight of this whole stack of unpleasant things is too much for me to still basically enjoy the film, which I must say that I didn''t. Also because it is fiercely realistic and very well-made, photography-wise (Chris Menges (The Reader (2008)) and acting-wise: Vanessa Redgrave also gives a great performance in a single scene as the murdered girl's grandmother. And the ensemble cast is very impressive with additional stars Sam Shepard, Robin Wright Penn, Helen Mirren, Tom Noonan, Mickey Rourke (who is also moving as a father of a missing daughter) and Harry Dean Stanton.
Penn is in pre-production with another film right now which he will direct called The Last Face.

Related reviews:

Sean Penn as actor:  Gangster Squad (2013) or, Good Men vs. Bad Men! 
The Tree of Life (2011) or, Mother, Father, Sharks, Dinosaurs, My Brothers, Sunflowers, the Desert, the Wind and Me 
21 Grams (2003) or, Hardcore Life 

Watch the trailer here

Budget: 35 mil. $
Box office: 29.4 mil. $
= Flop

What do you think of The Pledge?