Hard Eight (film)

Hard Eight (awalnya berjudul Sydney) adalah film kriminal Amerika tahun 1996 yang ditulis dan disutradarai oleh Paul Thomas Anderson dalam debut penyutradaraannya, dan dibintangi Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, dan Samuel L. Jackson. Film ini merupakan pengembangan dari film pendek tahun 1993 Cigarettes & Coffee. Film ini mengisahkan kehidupan seorang penjudi senior dan seorang tunawisma. Film ini ditayangkan perdana di Sundance Film Festival tahun 1996.Conrad, Mark T. The Philosophy of Neo-Noir, 2009. The University Press of Kentucky. .

Plot
Sydney Brown, a well-dressed senior gambler, finds John Finnegan, a homeless man, forlornly sitting outside a diner in Sparks, Nevada. Sydney offers John a cigarette and buys him a cup of coffee. John tells Sydney that he went bust in Las Vegas and needs $6,000 for his mother's funeral. They travel to Vegas, where Sydney helps John win the money. Two years later, John becomes Sydney's protégé. Calm and reserved, Sydney displays a fatherly care for John, who is unsophisticated. John has a new friend named Jimmy, who does security work, and is attracted to Clementine, a cocktail waitress in Reno. Sydney meets Clementine and learns that she moonlights as a prostitute. Although Clementine believes Sydney might want to use her services, he wants to build a connection between John and her. Sydney asks John to show Clementine around town.

After receiving a frantic phone call, Sydney finds John and Clementine holding an unconscious tourist hostage in a nearby motel because he did not pay Clementine for sex. He learns that John and Clementine have called the hostage's wife, threatening to kill him if they do not get the money. After finding Jimmy's gun, Sydney convinces John and Clementine to flee the motel, advising them to leave town for a honeymoon as they have recently been impulsively married. While leaving, Sydney removes the evidence from the motel room.

Sydney meets with Jimmy, who tells him that the couple did not call the police. However, Jimmy explains that he has heard stories of Sydney killing John's father in Atlantic City. Jimmy pulls a gun on Sydney and threatens to tell John unless Sydney gives him $10,000. Sydney says that he does not have it, but he can give $6,000 cash. They go to Sydney's suite and down to the casino floor, where Sydney gets the money from the cashier and gives it to Jimmy. John calls Sydney from a roadside phone to update him on the honeymoon. During the call, Sydney tells John that he loves him like a son. After hearing that, John thanks him and says that he also loves him. Sydney sneaks into Jimmy's house, kills him and retrieves what is left of the money. The next day, Sydney returns to the diner where he met John and covers his bloodstained shirt cuff with a jacket sleeve.

Pemeran

 Philip Baker Hall sebagai Sydney Brown
 John C. Reilly sebagai John Finnegan
 Gwyneth Paltrow sebagai Clementine
 Samuel L. Jackson sebagai Jimmy

Beberapa aktor yang bekerja sama dengan Anderson muncul dalam film tersebut, termasuk Philip Seymour Hoffman sebagai pemain dadu dan Melora Walters sebagai pacar Jimmy.

Produksi
Judul aslinya adalah Sydney, film ini merupakan film fitur pertama Paul Thomas Anderson dan perluasan dari film pendek Cigarettes & Coffee. Karakter utama Sydney dinamai berdasarkan peran Hall sebelumnya dalam Midnight Run. Hall, Walters, Reilly, dan Hoffman kemudian membintangi Boogie Nights dan Magnolia.

Anderson mengatakan bahwa ia memilih Hoffman untuk peran pendukung setelah melihatnya dalam Scent of a Woman.  Menurut Hall, Hoffman mengimprovisasi sebagian besar dialog yang diucapkan karakternya dalam satu-satunya adegan dalam film tersebut.

Perilisan dan penerimaan
Film ini ditayangkan perdana di bagian American Spectrum pada Sundance Film Festival tahun 1996, dan kemudian di bagian Un Certain Regard di Festival Film Cannes 1996. Pada tahun 2018, Anderson mengatakan ia sedang mengerjakan perilisan film tersebut dalam format Blu-ray. Blu-ray Australia untuk film ini dirilis oleh Viavision pada bulan Oktober 2020.

Roger Ebert memberi film tersebut tiga setengah bintang dari empat, menulis "Film seperti Hard Eight mengingatkan saya pada karakter orisinal dan menarik yang terkadang dapat diberikan film kepada kita." Stephen Holden dari The New York Times menulis "Hard Eight bukanlah film yang ingin membuat pernyataan besar. Film ini sebenarnya tak lebih dari sekadar potongan suasana hati yang beresonansi, dengan karakter-karakter keras kepala yang sulit disukai. Namun, di tengah keterbatasan yang diciptakannya sendiri, film ini berhasil mencapai sebagian besar tujuannya. Aktingnya pun luar biasa bersahaja, ekonomis, dan tanpa sentimentalitas." 

Di Rotten Tomatoes, film ini memiliki peringkat persetujuan sebesar 82% berdasarkan 89 ulasan. Konsensus kritis situs web tersebut menyatakan, "Sebuah pertunjukan yang menarik bagi Philip Baker Hall, debut film Paul Thomas Anderson adalah sebuah pertaruhan yang membuahkan hasil besar.".   Beberapa penulis menggambarkan film ini sebagai film neo-noir.Conard, Mark T.; ed. (2009). The Philosophy of Neo-Noir. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. .

Lihat pula
 List of films set in Las Vegas

Referensi

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Category:1996 films
Category:1996 crime drama films
Category:1996 directorial debut films
Category:1996 independent films
Category:1990s American films
Category:1990s English-language films
Category:American crime drama films
Category:American films about gambling
Category:American independent films
Category:American neo-noir films
Category:English-language crime drama films
Category:English-language independent films
Category:Features based on short films
Category:Films directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Category:Films scored by Jon Brion
Category:Films scored by Michael Penn
Category:Films set in casinos
Category:Films set in the Las Vegas Valley
Category:Films set in Reno, Nevada
Category:Films with screenplays by Paul Thomas Anderson
Category:Remakes of American films
Category:Rysher Entertainment films
Category:The Samuel Goldwyn Company films