Really good movie. Paul Thomas Anderson's first film and he has a good one. Phillip Baker Hall is great and another good performance from John C. Reilly, who is a very underrated actor.

There is a film written by Paul Thomas Anderson that stars Sam Jackson, John C. Reilly and Philip Seymoure Hoffman that you haven't heard of. This was really a nice little Indie film. The lead was discovered much too late in life.

Stellar cast with some great acting, but the plot was weak

I just didn't really see the point of this movie. The characters were not very likeable and not much happened in the 96 minute runtime. From watching this and Boogie Nights I can say that PTA does a great job of creating setting and atmosphere but his characters are not very interesting and not given much to do. The one bright spot for me was the opening scene after the credits where Philip Baker Hall's character is showing John C. Reilly's character how to trick the casino into giving him a room.

I absolutely adore these smaller scale, refined character study movies that ask you to just take these characters as they are. There is no heavy exposition, forced dialogue to explain exactly why these characters are doing what they're doing or how they got to be where they are. Everything just plays out and the onus is put on the viewer to pick up the pieces and flesh out these characters with the small bursts and glimpses we're given into their backstories. Only when the film feels it has to wrap up do we get a bit of a forced resolution, but I still enjoyed the subdued, understated feel of this production and the quant nature of it's scope and plot. As a bit of a PTA newbie (I've only seen Licorice Pizza and didn't _love_ it), this was a great start to his portfolio for me. I absolutely cannot wait to see what I've been missing out on all these years when I move onto Boogie Nights soon.

The only PTA movie I hadn’t seen (other than the brand new Licorice Pizza). It’s good, but not great–I could watch Philip Baker Hall all day long, and same goes for John C. I wish the screenplay had been developed a bit more, because it felt a little slight at the end of the day. There’s too much plot for it to be a character study, but there’s not enough plot to make it feel like it really ever goes anywhere. The ending throws in a twist that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and it all gets wrapped up in a strangely unsatisfying way. Still worth watching PTA get his feet under him, just not my favorite.

A compelling low-key drama with some mystery to it. Worth watching.