Hard Eight is a perfect, subtle character study directed by Paul Thomas Anderson before he went big (literally & figuratively with respect to more over the top characters) in Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood. Anderson displays the same respect for Philip Baker Hall as Quentin Tarantino does for Robert Forster by creating a character, a gentleman named Sydney, who comes from a different time with different rules and is quietly in control in any situation yet courteous and decent to most individuals. Philip Seymour Hoffman appears briefly as a lout whom Sydney encounters and barely tolerates. POSSIBLE SPOILER

The only flaw in the story: why does Sydney think that Clementine shouldn’t go home?