The kid is named John (John C. Reilly). He needs $6,000 to bury his mother and has lost everything. Step by step, Sydney teaches him some ropes, like how to start with $150 and recycle it through the casino cashier cages until he seems to have spent $2,000 in the casino, and is given a free room. This opening sequence is quietly fascinating: I like movies that show me precisely how to get away with something. At the end of the process, it's funny how John, now that he's in his own room, becomes the genial host. "Free movies on TV?" he asks Sydney. "Drink from the mini-bar?"

Two years pass. Sydney and John are still friends, John dressing like Sydney and even ordering the same drinks. We begin to understand more about the older man. He is a gentleman, with a deep courtesy. He watches the waitress Clementine (Gwyneth Paltrow) flirt with a table of drunks, asks her if she "has" to do that to keep her job and says, "You don't have to do that with me."

John and Clementine become a couple, even though it's clear Clemmie does some hooking on the side. John also makes a friend of an ominous man named Jimmy (Samuel L. Jackson), who Sydney doesn't trust. "What do you do?" Sydney asks him. "I do some consulting, security, help out on busy nights," Jimmy says. "Parking lot?" says Sydney. "No, I'm inside," Jimmy says, but Sydney's shot has found its target.

By this point in the film, its writer-director, Paul Thomas Anderson, has us so hooked that we're watching for the sheer pleasure of the dialogue and the acting. Anderson has a good ear. Sydney says precisely what he means. John's statements are based more on hope than reality. Clementine says what she thinks people want to hear. Jimmy likes to say things that are probably not true, and then look at you to see if you'll challenge him. All of them live in the 24-hour days of Reno, where gambling is like a drumbeat in the back of everything they do.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46hmKucXZq2qLTTZmhycWc%3D