Hard Eight is a 1996 American Crime movie directed by Paul Anderson. The film’s main stars are Philip Baker Hall, John Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L Jackson and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
The original title of the film was initially called “Sydney” the name of the main character.
An unsuccessful gambler is befriended by a professional conman who offers to teach him the tricks of the trade. He accepts – but a romance with a waitress threatens his new life.
The Main Story
Sydney, ( Phillip Hall ) is a hardened gambler who finds a miserable young man, John ( John Reilly ), sitting outside a diner in Vegas. He buys him coffee and learns that John needs $6,000 to pay for his mother’s funeral. He offers to teach John how to gamble.
John becomes Sydney’s protégé and is treated as a Son. John befriends a chap called Jimmy who is attracted to Clementine, a cocktail waitress and Part-time Prostitute.
Sydney meets Clementine and tries to connect John and Clementine who land up impulsively getting married. Soon after the marriage, Sydney receives a frantic phone call and goes to a motel where he finds John and Clementine holding a tourist hostage. The tourist was a client of Clementine who had sold herself to the tourist for sex. The tourist refused to pay, so John and Clementine beat him up and then phone Sydney.
Sydney tells them to go on their honeymoon while he removes the evidence from the motel room.
The tourist recovers and tracks Sydney down at the diner, shooting him three times before leaving to find John and Clementine.
The Ending
After the shooting, the audience assumes Sydney is dead, but it ends with the scene of him walking into the diner and covering a bloodstain with his shirt cuff.
Bugsy is a 1991 American biographical crime film based on the renowned mafia boss Bugsy Siegel and his real-life exploits in Las Vegas. It is based on a book written by Dean Jennings called We Only Kill Each Other. Bugsy was directed by Barry Levinson and nominated for numerous Academy Awards. It starts Warren Beaty as Siegel and Annette Benning as Virginia Hill.
The Main Story
In Bugsy one sees Malone move to Hollywood and become involved with movie star Virginia Hill. He gets a vision of developing a gambling haven in Las Vegas whilst gambling in the Nevada Desert. He receives a $1 million loan from his lifelong friend Lansky and some other New York mobsters as he reminds them that gambling is legal in Nevada.
Initially, Virginia wants no part of this scheme until he puts her in charge of accounting and starts building the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. The budget soon soars to $6 million due to Siegel’s extravagance. The grand opening of the Flamingo Casino is a complete failure with $2 million of the funding unaccounted, which Virginia had in fact stolen. Casino Grand Bay would’ve been a far better choice! I digress, Bugsy found out that Virginia had stolen the money, but, he keeps quiet about it and lets her keep it. However, on the same night of the opening, Bugsy is shot and killed in his home. Virginia receives the bad news and knows she has to return the stolen money.
The Ending
A week after Bugsy’s death, Virginia returns the stolen cash to Lansky and then commits suicide at her home in Austria. Here is the twist by 1991, The $6 million invested in Bugsy’s Las Vegas Casino generated $100 Billion in revenue. It just goes to show that some gambles pay off but is it worth a life?
Guns Girls and Gambling is a 2012 American thriller/action comedy film written and directed by Michael Winnick. It also features an ensemble cast which includes Gary Oldman, Christian Slater, Helena Mattison and many more well-known actors and actresses.
Guns, Girls, and Gambling is about an Apache war mask stolen from an Indian Casino which sees a group of criminals descending on the small town in the hope of claiming the stolen artefact. It’s filled with Elvis impersonators, a Blonde assassin who prefers women to men and many other seedy characters in this outrageous action comedy about greed and revenge.
The Main Story
John Smith is the main character and played by Christian Slater. He stops off at a Native American Casino. After being robbed of his wallet and losing all his money in a Texas Hold ’em Poker game he decides to enter an Elvis impersonation competition.
He loses the competition but then proceeds to play cards with four other Elvis Impersonators who won all his money off him. After the game, he falls asleep and is woken by security guards who think he stole a priceless ancient Native American mask.
Witnesses said they saw an Elvis Impersonator steal the mask, so John becomes the prime suspect. 2 security guards don’t believe John took it, but they decide to kill him anyway, while they hunt for the real suspect. The Casino Owner offers a $1,000,000 reward for the return of the mask. The movie goes through John’s pursuit, with many people joining in on the search to get the reward money.
The Ending
The movie is full of twists and turns, and in the end, John manages to steal the mask and returns it to the native tribe that the casino owner had initially stolen it from.
