After flying high for five brilliant seasons on TV's "Breaking Bad," Bryan Cranston lands with a thud on the big screen in "Cold Comes the Night," a murky and undistinguished indie crime drama written by Tze Chun, Osgood Perkins and Nick Smith and directed by Chun. It's unclear what the overall purpose of the movie is; we just know that it must be a "serious" work because nobody ever smiles and the sun never comes out.
Chloe (Alice Eve) is a streetwise single mom who runs a motel where the local prostitutes and drug dealers regularly come to transact their business and sell their wares. Indeed, the locale is so questionable that child services is threatening to take Chloe's daughter away from her if she doesn't hightail her to a more appropriate place toot sweet. One of the motel's guests is a half blind hit man named Topo (Cranston) who finds himself stuck at the place after his assistant/nephew is involved in a double homicide and some important money goes missing. Topo suspects that Chloe may know the whereabouts of the loot, but the spunky Chloe figures she has little to lose in a high stakes gamble with fate. And thus the game is on Eventually, so many bodies have piled up at Chloe's little roadside establishment that even the Bates Motel starts looking like a wiser lodging option for any weary traveler passing through the region.
Cranston spends most of his time growling and scowling, while continually dropping his articles in a vain attempt at a Russian accent (although even that isn't done with any real consistency). It's a bit like Walter White (albeit with hair) playing at being Gus Fring - though with little of the complexity or charm of either of those two "Breaking Bad" characters. Eve suggests she might be worth watching in a role worth playing. This is not it.
Chloe (Alice Eve) is a streetwise single mom who runs a motel where the local prostitutes and drug dealers regularly come to transact their business and sell their wares. Indeed, the locale is so questionable that child services is threatening to take Chloe's daughter away from her if she doesn't hightail her to a more appropriate place toot sweet. One of the motel's guests is a half blind hit man named Topo (Cranston) who finds himself stuck at the place after his assistant/nephew is involved in a double homicide and some important money goes missing. Topo suspects that Chloe may know the whereabouts of the loot, but the spunky Chloe figures she has little to lose in a high stakes gamble with fate. And thus the game is on Eventually, so many bodies have piled up at Chloe's little roadside establishment that even the Bates Motel starts looking like a wiser lodging option for any weary traveler passing through the region.
Cranston spends most of his time growling and scowling, while continually dropping his articles in a vain attempt at a Russian accent (although even that isn't done with any real consistency). It's a bit like Walter White (albeit with hair) playing at being Gus Fring - though with little of the complexity or charm of either of those two "Breaking Bad" characters. Eve suggests she might be worth watching in a role worth playing. This is not it.