HARD EIGHT (1996) Gambling and gamboling in Vegas

In HARD EIGHT, everything is hard: the characters, the dialogue, the lessons learned, and the string of violent acts that lead to young man's rebirth and an old hood's atonement. A mysterious black-suited man (Philip Baker Hall) walks into a diner and commits a seemingly random act of kindess for a down-and-out young man (John C. Reilly) that starts with a cigarette and cup of coffee and turns out to be a priceless education on how to win in Vegas and in life. Along the way we learn the secret of what binds the two men. Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, this film is about mentoring, love, casino life and sweet revenge. Watch for a brief but absolutely unforgettable cameo by Philip Seymour Hoffman (another of Anderson's regulars) as a loud-mouthed high roller. (Trivia note: Philip Baker Hall played the trench-coated, humorously fascistic library cop Bookman in a Seinfeld episode, and a fictionally suicidal Richard Nixon in Robert Altman's riveting one-man film SECRET HONOR (1985).