Hard Eight

In a Nevada diner, one stranger buys another a cup of coffee. Sydney is a professional gambler who offers John, a man in need of a large sum of money to pay for his mother’s funeral, the opportunity to learn the trade. As John begins to master the gambling scene, both men are put in jeopardy when a cocktail waitress enters their lives. With its noir-ish crime aesthetic, Anderson’s directorial debut evidences an element which would come to permeate all his work: that of an observant lens humbly listening to its characters and to the inner realities stacked underneath the mucky jobs and appearances they portray.