You get the impression that this inexpensive film turned out just about the way the director, P. T. Anderson, wanted it to. It was shot among the neon casinos, shadowy parking lots, and motel and hotel rooms in Reno, Nevada, "The Biggest Little City in the World" as the sign over the highway used to read. The photography and lighting are hypnotically low, though nothing is obscured. The direction is straightforward without being headlong. There is no directorial razzle dazzle. Events take place in real time. No car pursuits, no exploding fireballs, no shoot outs, no ugly guns. The performances are about as good as they get for this type of smallish film. Not that the actors necessarily have a good deal of range, but that they fit their parts well.
Philip Baker Hall is the central figure, an ex hood who hangs in a hotel apartment, dresses in inconspicuous suits and ties, has a little money stashed away from previous enterprises "back East", and adds to it by a little well-calculated gambling. Hall's character is polite but inexpressive, and he doesn't like profane language used around women. You may recognize him from currently running TV commercials of a comic nature for a product whose name I never cared to remember. He runs across John C. Reilly, a young guy who is down and out, and more or less adopts him. He also takes under his wing a cocktail waitress, Gwyneth Paltrow, who adds to HER income by hooking on the side. The two young folks get along well under his avuncular tutelage.
Enter Samual L. Jackson in essentially the same role he played in "Jackie Brown," the savvy and self-interested dude who sees through all the rhetoric and hears all kinds of stories about all kinds of goings on. Nobody could do it better than Jackson. He smiles readily, extends a friendly, reassuring pat on the back, and projects an attitude of "You and I are men of the world and we both know what's really happening." The self interest is never too well hidden though and it proves his undoing.
John C. Reilly looks and acts a little dumb, as he should, but he doesn't bring any poetry to the part and gives the weakest performance. Gwyneth Paltrow is a little hard to believe as the put-upon, reluctant whore, but she brings it off by investing the role with a winsome quality, as if she'd just been snatched off an Iowa farm and sold into white slavery racket.
There is no musical score as such, no thumping electronic percussion to pump up the adrenalin and damage the inner ear, but there is source music. A trio plays in one of the lounges -- vibes, bass, and guitar -- quietly reproducing the kind of modestly jazzed-up old standards that Frank Sinatra would have eaten alive.
It's an unpretentious movie about affection, love, greed, and murder in Reno. Nicely done. But one carp. Philip Baker Hall stars. And there is a small scene with early Philip Seymour Hoffman rolling the dice against a "hard eight." Philip Baker Hall and Philip Seymour Hoffman. I only mention the director, Philip Thomas Anderson, in passing. I won't mention the name of the writer -- Philip Thomas Anderson -- at all. That's enough of that stuff. No more three names. It's an affectation that's pompous enough for women like Jennifer Jason Leigh but it's inexcusable in men. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, okay. That's history. But what's next? Ernest Miller Hemingway? I'm warning you guys -- cut it out.
Philip Baker Hall is the central figure, an ex hood who hangs in a hotel apartment, dresses in inconspicuous suits and ties, has a little money stashed away from previous enterprises "back East", and adds to it by a little well-calculated gambling. Hall's character is polite but inexpressive, and he doesn't like profane language used around women. You may recognize him from currently running TV commercials of a comic nature for a product whose name I never cared to remember. He runs across John C. Reilly, a young guy who is down and out, and more or less adopts him. He also takes under his wing a cocktail waitress, Gwyneth Paltrow, who adds to HER income by hooking on the side. The two young folks get along well under his avuncular tutelage.
Enter Samual L. Jackson in essentially the same role he played in "Jackie Brown," the savvy and self-interested dude who sees through all the rhetoric and hears all kinds of stories about all kinds of goings on. Nobody could do it better than Jackson. He smiles readily, extends a friendly, reassuring pat on the back, and projects an attitude of "You and I are men of the world and we both know what's really happening." The self interest is never too well hidden though and it proves his undoing.
John C. Reilly looks and acts a little dumb, as he should, but he doesn't bring any poetry to the part and gives the weakest performance. Gwyneth Paltrow is a little hard to believe as the put-upon, reluctant whore, but she brings it off by investing the role with a winsome quality, as if she'd just been snatched off an Iowa farm and sold into white slavery racket.
There is no musical score as such, no thumping electronic percussion to pump up the adrenalin and damage the inner ear, but there is source music. A trio plays in one of the lounges -- vibes, bass, and guitar -- quietly reproducing the kind of modestly jazzed-up old standards that Frank Sinatra would have eaten alive.
It's an unpretentious movie about affection, love, greed, and murder in Reno. Nicely done. But one carp. Philip Baker Hall stars. And there is a small scene with early Philip Seymour Hoffman rolling the dice against a "hard eight." Philip Baker Hall and Philip Seymour Hoffman. I only mention the director, Philip Thomas Anderson, in passing. I won't mention the name of the writer -- Philip Thomas Anderson -- at all. That's enough of that stuff. No more three names. It's an affectation that's pompous enough for women like Jennifer Jason Leigh but it's inexcusable in men. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, okay. That's history. But what's next? Ernest Miller Hemingway? I'm warning you guys -- cut it out.