Released in Europe as Sydney, Hard Eight is a movie set in Reno about gambling, hookers and gangsters. While it includes all those elements, its not a crime drama movie, but a movie about redemption.

This movie features four main characters: Sydney (Philip Baker Hall), John (John C. Reilly), Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Jimmy (Samuel L Jackson). Hard Eight was director Paul Thomas Anderson's first feature film. He went on to direct Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love and There will be Blood.

Sydney befriends a young down and out gambler, John. John is looking for money to pay for his mother's funeral and Sydney offers to take take him under his wing and take him to Reno where he can learn to gamble.

Two years, later John has become attracted to a cocktail waitress and part-time hooker Clementine. Soon thereafter, Clementine is involved with an altercation with a client and Sydney cleans it up. Syndey suggests the two take a honeymoon to Niagara Falls. Soon after they leave Jimmy confronts and tries to blackmail Sydney about a dark secret from Sydney's past.

• Philip Baker Hall as Sydney

• John C. Reilly as John

• Gwyneth Paltrow as Clementine

• Samuel L Jackson as Jimmy

"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."—John Anderson, Los Angeles Times http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-movie970228-3,2,919691.story