A Christmas Noir
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights (1997), There Will Be Blood (2007)). The cinematography was by Robert Elswit (The River Wild (1994), Boogie Nights (1997), There Will Be Blood (2007)) and the great music was by Jon Brion and Michael Penn.
The film stars Philip Baker Hall (Zabriskie Point (1970), Kiss of Death (1995) Hit Me (1996)), John C. Reilly (The River Wild (1994), Gangs of New York (2002) ), Gwyneth Paltrow (The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and Samuel L. Jackson (Sea of Love (1989), Goodfellas (1990), White Sands (1992), True Romance (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997) The Hateful Eight (2015)), with small supporting appearances by Robert Ridgely, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Melora Walters.
Sydney (Hall). Hard guy. An ex gangster. Maybe it's just the Christmas season or maybe Sydney is seeking perhaps a personal redemption. He's in some Mojave desert pitstop trying hard to weasel some wings.
Mojave Desert/Jack's Coffee Shop
Sydney (Hall)
John John (Reilly). Dumbass. Loser. Down and out. Transient at Jack's. Went from Los Angeles to Vegas to, get this, try and win the six grand he needs to bury his mother. Sydney "finds" John and offers him a cigarette and a cup of joe. Sydney we find out later has an Atlantic City connection to John. At the booth Sydney offers to give John fifty bucks. He asks John what he'd do with the fifty, Johns says he'll eat. Sydney answers and then what? Sydney tells him that with the fifty dollars I'll take you to Vegas and show you how to survive. John wonders what's the catch, but he agrees to let Sydney show him and they drive back to Vegas.
Two years later. Christmas time. John and Sydney have been up in Reno now a couple of low rollers working the casino circuits. John is getting by on his own thanks to Sydney. John has also fallen in love with a cocktail waitress/B-girl/amateur hooker named Clementine (Paltrow). John also has made a new friend name of Jimmy (Jackson), he is a hard drinking, suave, cocky, casino security man who moonlights as "player."
Clementine (Paltrow)
Jimmy (Jackson)Sydney wants the best for John, treats him like a son. Sydney becomes interested in Clementine when he sees that John is head over heels for her. Questioning Clementine, Sydney finds out that she is also expected to be friendly to the customers.
Sydney: [at the cocktail lounge] Tell me something. Are you required to flirt, to behave as you do toward that table of men over there? Maybe... it's some part of your job?
Clementine: Uh, they don't say to do it.
Sydney: But if you don't?
Clementine: Well, then I get questioned, like: "Why were so rude to them?", and, I mean, I can't talk back. I can't tell them to fuck off and leave me alone.
Sydney: As a rule?
Clementine: I'd also lose the tip.
Tailing her after work he finds out that she's hooking on the side. That night, Sydney confronts Clementine and takes her up to his room. Clementine suspects that he wants to play hide the sausage, but he only wants to set her up with John.
The next day Sydney sends Clementine and John out to the mall to buy her some clothes.
That night, Sydney receives a frantic call from John. John asks Sydney for help, and John won't tell him why, he just asks him to come to a motel room. Sydney gets to the room. WTF. He finds out that John and Clementine are not the sharpest tools in the shed. They have taken a trick of Clementine's hostage. He fucked Clementine and didn't pay her. They've knocked him out and are holding him for ransom. They called his wife and demanded $300.
Sydney: You know the first thing they should've taught you at hooker school? You get the money up front!
I want my three hundred dollarsSydney, can't believe it. Then to top it all off John tells Sydney that he married Clementine. When Sydney asks who knows that they are there, John finally tells him that Jimmy brought him the gun. Sydney takes charge tells John and Clementine to get out of town, go on a honeymoon. The head out to Niagara Falls.
Everything goes Noirsville when Jimmy blackmails Sydney with the knowledge that Sydney shot John's father in the face back in Jersey.
Continuing...
