| Director | Paul Thomas Anderson |
|---|---|
| Budget | $3 million |
| Box office | $222,806 |
Sydney Brown, a well-dressed senior gambler, finds John Finnegan, a homeless man, forlornly sitting outside a diner in Sparks, Nevada. Sydney offers John a cigarette and buys him a cup of coffee. John tells Sydney that he went bust in Las Vegas and needs $6,000 for his mother's funeral. They travel to Vegas, where Sydney helps John win the money. Two years later, John becomes Sydney's protégé. Calm and reserved, Sydney displays a fatherly care for John, who is unsophisticated. John has a new friend named Jimmy, who does security work, and is attracted to Clementine, a cocktail waitress in Reno. Sydney meets Clementine and learns that she moonlights as a prostitute. Although Clementine believes Sydney might want to use her services, he wants to build a connection between John and her. Sydney asks John to show Clementine around town.
After receiving a frantic phone call, Sydney finds John and Clementine holding an unconscious tourist hostage in a nearby motel because he did not pay Clementine for sex. He learns that John and Clementine have called the hostage's wife, threatening to kill him if they do not get the money. After finding Jimmy's gun, Sydney convinces John and Clementine to flee the motel, advising them to leave town for a honeymoon as they have recently been impulsively married. While leaving, Sydney removes the evidence from the motel room.
Sydney meets with Jimmy, who tells him that the couple did not call the police. However, Jimmy explains that he has heard stories of Sydney killing John's father in Atlantic City. Jimmy pulls a gun on Sydney and threatens to tell John unless Sydney gives him $10,000. Sydney says that he does not have it, but he can give $6,000 cash. They go to Sydney's suite and down to the casino floor, where Sydney gets the money from the cashier and gives it to Jimmy. John calls Sydney from a roadside phone to update him on the honeymoon. During the call, Sydney tells John that he loves him like a son. After hearing that, John thanks him and says that he also loves him. Jimmy takes the money to a casino and wins betting $2,000 on a hard eight. Sydney sneaks into Jimmy's house and when he returns, he kills him and takes his cash. The next day, Sydney returns to the diner where he met John and covers his bloodstained shirt cuff with a jacket sleeve.