Mesmerizing Performances, Story Keep ‘Eight’ Rolling

For some actors, the perfect role comes early, makes them stars, occasionally makes them headaches. For others--Philip Baker Hall, for instance--it arrives after years of being a well-known face unconnected to a name, an actor on the edges of the spotlight and perhaps waiting for and ripening into his ideal character.

For Hall, the role is Sydney, an aging, gentlemanly gambler with the heart of--is it really gold?--who’s the main fascination of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Hard Eight.”

The title, we noncrapshooters learn, refers obliquely to an eight rolled with a four on each of the dice. Courteous, chivalrous, neatly if not well-dressed, Sydney may be a sucker for betting the hard eight, but he’s also a survivor, an intelligent professional who dwells on the edge of legitimacy, surrounded by what basically is the scum of the earth. Gambling, we gather, is the flaw that keeps him from being a great man--and keeps him a tragic masterpiece. Anderson, making modern film noir a la John Dahl (“The Last Seduction”), gives us a mystery, then wraps him in an enigma.

Why would the obviously crafty and cultured Sydney virtually adopt the destitute and uninspiring John (John C. Reilly) off the front steps of a Nevada diner, teach him the tricks of his trade, steer him toward a romance with full-time casino waitress/part-time hooker Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow, in her best role yet) and try to protect him from the clearly malevolent Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson)? We hunger to know.

And at the same time we don’t. 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. A wrong move, and we’re all goners. That Anderson gets himself, and us, out of this predicament with only the slightest shattering of sensibility is a sign of enormous talent.

With some terrific hand-held camera work by Robert Elswit, Anderson also finds unexplored territory in the over-filmed milieu of Nevada’s casino-land. It’s sympathetic cinematography: Sydney views Reno as his workplace, not an amusement park. Through such eyes, all that tawdry splendor becomes not just garish but trite.

It’s far too early to be talking about the year’s best this and the year’s best that, but if “Hard Eight” is forgotten when the awards start flying around at the end of ‘97, it’ll be a shame. As well as a mystery.

* MPAA rating: R for strong language, some violence and sexuality. Times guidelines: Violence as well as subject matter make it unsuitable for younger viewers.

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‘Hard Eight’

Sydney: Philip Baker Hall

John: John C. Reilly

Clementine: Gwyneth Paltrow

Jimmy: Samuel L. Jackson

A Rysher Entertainment production, released by Goldwyn Entertainment Co. Director Paul Thomas Anderson. Producers Robert Jones, John Lyons. Screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson. Cinematographer Robert Elswit. Editor Barbara Tulliver. Costumes Mark Bridges. Music Michael Penn, Jon Brion. Production design Nancy Deren. Art director Michael Krantz. Set Designer David A. Koneff. Running time: 1 hour, 41 minutes.

* In selected theaters.