Under the friendly tutelage of canny old Philip Baker Hall, penniless loser John C Reilly becomes a gambling winner, but then he falls for cocktail waitress floozy Gwyneth Paltrow.

Scaldingly great acting rivets the attention in this brilliantly tense, taut and atmospheric debut feature from the writer-director of Boogie Nights and Magnolia.

With Samuel L Jackson as a corrupt security guard, this is just as good a character study as it is a picture of Reno and Vegas lowlife.

Small-time crooks have rarely seemed as fascinating or as real.