User reviews

Entertaining little movie. I can't come to any major complain in general. It was watchable and involving, had a very good pace and a convincing role of the lead criminal. Acting was fine. I also found the movie somehow natural and charming. I think that the director Tze Chun is a gifted filmmaker. My impression is that this movie wasn't made with some great budget, yet it is much more interesting than many blockbusters of the same genre, if you ask me. I also believe that Cold Comes the Night is a bit underrated on IMDb. So I can say I recommend this movie. My message to director would be - pretty nice work, keep on working!

Cold Comes The Night is a dark thriller about a woman Chloe(Alice Eve) who lives and runs a rundown motel. To make ends meet and support her 10 year old daughter she is in business with Billy(Logan Marshall Green),a corrupt cop that deals smack and pimps hookers out of the motel. Billy(the least sympathetic character in this piece) takes advantage of Chloe's situation and at times is psychotic and brutal towards her. Bryan Cranston is a Russian mobster who spends the night at the motel. He loses his driver and the jeep that has a package he is obligated to deliver. Topo(Bryan Cranston) takes Chloe and her daughter Sophia hostage and sets out to retrieve his package at any cost. Chloe is the most sympathetic character in this film (with exception to her daughter obviously) and is mostly a victim of circumstance. Make no mistake everyone in this movie is bad, including Chole. Performances are real strong across the board and elevate this material greatly. Bryan Cranston is exceptional in this and stands out as a nearly blind, ruthless career criminal. As a huge fan of Breaking Bad myself, he was the reason to check out this downtrodden drama and I am not disappointed. CCTN overall really came across with the strong performances from the cast and sold what would otherwise be an average thriller. I am glad I gave this a look and hope to see Bryan Cranston play more dark characters like Topo and Walter White in the future.

Jees, what a let-down. After 'Breaking Bad' no one could deny that Bryan Cranston is a formidable actor, capable of amazing drama. And he signed on for this. Don't get me wrong – it's not bad-bad. It's just nowhere near what he should be starring in. He plays a half-blind Russian thief (with a slightly dodgy accent sometimes) who takes a single mother hostage in order to help him retrieve his loot.

That's about it. Alice Eve plays his hostage and she does it as well as the story will allow. The simple thing about this film is that it's just so run-of-the-mill it's barely worth talking about.

You won't hate it, but you won't remember it in a week's time either.

Bryan (and Alice), you're both capable of bigger and better things.

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Montreal lies due north of New York. To the south of Montreal are the Adirondack Mountains. It was here, at Saranac Lake in December 1887, that Robert Louis Stevenson first conceived of 'The Master Of Ballantrae', and decided to use the location for a setting in his novel. South of there lies Albany the capital city of the state of New York, and south of there is Sullivan County, where, in Bethel, was staged the famous Woodstock Festival of 1969.

Halfway between New York and Montreal, up the Hudson River, between Sullivan County and Albany, are the Catskill Mountains and Greene County. This is the setting for this film, but the Greene County of this film is a million miles away from the government in Albany or the hippies of Woodstock. Rather, the Greene County setting, is as dark as that Saranac setting of R.L. Stevenson.

After the credits, the film starts pleasantly enough with a mother sending her kid off to school. There follows a few short scenes which show effectively and efficiently the drudgery of the woman in her work. She works in a motel, as manager, chamber-maid, and sole employee, and she and her daughter live there too.

One night two men decide to stay in her motel. They are men on a mission. Not a mission from god, but rather their mission is to transport Mr Alfred Hitchcock's McGuffin.

The overnight stay at the motel starts a chain of events that quickly spiral out of control. At the centre of these events is Bryan Cranston, who plays one of the coldest characters ever seen since Tom Cruise in 'Collateral' (2004). Cold, ruthless, and unemotional, the words "I am a friend of your mothers", are truly terrifying.

The mother herself, played by Alice Eve, also shows no emotion or expression. She too is cold. She is portrayed as passive and submissive. This reviewer, whilst puzzled by this, feels that this must be a deliberate film-making decision; to show these characteristics as a learnt defence mechanism, which the mother has adopted to help her deal with her past and present circumstances.

At the heart of this film is the McGuffin, and the battle of wits between the male and female lead. Both leads are mostly laconic, and if you are looking for a film-noir with more twists than a pretzel, then you will not be disappointed by this film that fulfils the conventions and expectations of the genre.

Good support is given by the rest of the cast. Special mention should go to Ursula Parker, playing the daughter, who gives a very natural performance. Praise too, for Logan Marshall-Green, who plays a cop, and gives a very animated, heated, and passionate performance, which is the complete opposite of that of the two (cold) leads.

Some clever filming enables the audience to experience things through the eyes of the protagonists.

Viewers should not expect to learn everything. Some questions, and some plot-threads are deliberately left unexplained or vague. It is clear that some things are understated and left to our imagination.

If you liked 'Hard Eight' (1996), 'Collateral' (2004), or the recent 'Dead Man Down' from earlier this year, then this dark, tense, film is for you. Warning: Contains blood. 8/10.

I assume I was drawn to 'Cold Comes the Night' for the same reason as many viewers: Bryan Cranston. I've worked my way through 'Breaking Bad' three times, and believe that even in a time of strong dramatic TV leads (e.g. Michael C. Hall, Jon Hamm, Charlie Hunnam), Cranston stood out as the greatest. I struggle to imagine even someone like Daniel Day-Lewis handling certain 'Breaking Bad' scenes as well as Cranston. I was therefore surprised to find that the strong performer in Tze Chun's 'Cold Comes the Night' is actually an actress I'd never heard of before: Alice Eve. I've long believed that a strong lead performance can elevate an otherwise bad film into mediocrity, and an otherwise mediocre film into a good one. Alice Eve shows the kind of protectiveness and desperation familiar to those who've seen Jennifer Lawrence in 'Winter's Bone', although she isn't as subtle as Lawrence. Although Eve's talents certainly make her scenes more enjoyable, I feel that the star attraction - Cranston - was woefully underused. His forced Russian accent stifles his ability to express himself, and his character's near-blindness could have been explored in far greater depth. These deficiencies prevent 'Cold Comes the Night' from rising above mediocrity. Tze Chun is a director I'm entirely (sans this film, of course) unfamiliar with. In bolder hands, 'Cold Comes the Night' could have been a very good crime drama. Unfortunately, the film doesn't escape the tropes of the genre, despite having sufficient scope and talent to do so.

You have to struggle to find a less thrilling thriller than this.

I don't know if they were trying to go for originality when they decided to make the thrilling scenes as unthrilling as possible.

None of the actors are bad per se, they just don't act out very much, for instance a woman is being held under gunpoint threatened by a ruthless Russian assassin and she doesn't seem to be scared of that situation one bit, actually seem rather bored and just want to get it done and over with.

Bryan Cranston is not bad per se either but he's just plain boring, his character is dull and the fact that he's blind which could be interesting really turns out not to be.

Scenes drag on forever and I struggle to find reasons to why I should care about the bozos in the movie.

I read reviews on here saying that it's unconventional because it's realistic, oh really? So if someone threatens to murder you and your daughter you wouldn't be trembling your bones every second? I question your perception of reality if that is the case (no offence)

"Good help is hard to find." Chloe (Eve) is a hotel owner who is not only struggling to keep her life together but also to keep her daughter with her. Her day goes from bad to worse when after being threatened by child protective services a murder occurs in one of her rooms. As if that isn't bad enough a man named Topo (Cranston) knew the man who was killed and the vehicle that had his money was taken by the cops. He enlists the help of Chloe and the two of them set out to get the money back...or Amy will lose her daughter forever. There have been many many movies with this idea, someone loses something important to them and an innocent stranger must help them get it back. The difference in this one is...the cast. I'm not saying they were great I'm saying this one had a different cast. On the other hand though the cast is really one of the reasons why this is watchable. Alice Eve is believable as a woman who will do anything to save her daughter. Cranston tries his best to be a creepy tough guy but comes off as being flat. This is a movie that had potential but again became another generic "let's get my money or else" movie. Overall, not horrible but the movies Cash and Pressed were much better. I give this a B-.

Nothing truly special or unusual: Just a really good crime drama that's a little too well-acted and realistic to be labeled a "thriller." COLD COMES the NIGHT is grimly riveting and constantly leaves you wondering what will happen next. Some layers, twists, and reversals, but it's still very easy to follow and, therefore, may be a little too episodic and simple for some tastes.

CCN has a minimalistic low-budget appeal to it. We don't know a whole lot about the various players in the smaller town Mid-Atlantic setting. Nevertheless, it shows us all we really need to know. Violent, disturbing, but without cheap schlocky gore. I kept thinking, "This is how real murders must look and, especially, sound." Alice Eve gives a plain yet memorable performance as Chloe, a tough but compassionate single mother who manages the sleazy motel where all the trouble starts. The other actors do likewise in their roles. The script and cinematography are similarly real. Nice ending. Good, fitting soundtrack too. Though it doesn't try for anything big, COLD COMES the NIGHT accomplishes all it sets out to do and is a very watchable little film.

Mrs. Shullivan and I were in the mood for a crime thriller genre film and so we popped in Bryan Cranston's starring role in Cold Comes the Night. Cranston plays a Russian courier named Topo who is gradually going blind and he in the middle of a road trip which has him couriering one million dollars to his Russian mobster boss. As his sight is near gone he requires someone to drive the car couriering the Russian mobs cash and his driver just can't be trusted as we discover.

His co-star is Alice Eve who plays a single mom named Chloe working as a motel night desk clerk in a seedy part of town strewn with ladies of the night who prefer to rent her motel rooms by the hour rather than by the night. Now Chloe has received an ultimatum by a case worker from Child Services that she needs to move her daughter to a more suitable living environment than hooker haven or Child Services will swoop in an take Chloe's daughter away from her.

So Topo and his brother-in-law dupe of a chauffeur played by Robin Lord Taylor (more widely known as Oswald Cobblepot, the Penguin, on the hit 2014 TV series Gotham) make an over night stop over at Chloe's motel, rent separate rooms for the night, and then this thriller evolves....well sort of anyway.

I can't say that Bryan Cranston was right on character as the blind Russian mobster since his Russian dialect was as believable as maybe a Jimmy Fallon's Russian impersonation. Of course you have a corrupt cop named Billy Banks played by Logan Marshall-Green who is supposed to add some hype and action to this crime thriller but I thought his acting was way over the top. (Also a personal observation, what makes so many actors/actresses use a stage name comprised of both their divorced parents surnames as a way of commemorating both parents and think we will remember them? This is a pet peeve of mine. Hey actors/actresses, choose one surname or another and get over yourself.)

Without giving away too much of the movies plot (as there is not a lot of meat on this bone) Topo's cash goes missing and he will stop at nothing to find the scammers who have left him holding an empty bag that he must now otherwise report back to his Russian mob boss unless he recovers his stolen million dollars.

A two for one rating: Mrs. Shullivan gave the film a 4 out of 10 and since I am a sucker for crime thriller genres and have seen literally thousands of them I give it a slightly higher 6 out of 10 rating. It is worth a late night watch if you are having difficulty sleeping. If you are a crime thriller genre junkie as I am, I don't think you will be able to go to bed without finding out first how the film ends. It's not so great but does have a "so/so" story line to keep you hooked until the final two words are illuminated..."THE END".

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.

This is a decent watchable thriller.

A financially struggling mother(with a young daughter) is running a motel which caters for low lives when some very unsavory characters enter their lives and make things even worse.......

One of the "baddies" is an actor called Bryan Cranston who absolutely steals the show. He has the best line in the picture the tongue in cheek: "Hard to get decent help"

Though the eventual outcome of the story is very predicable and unoriginal, I lasted to the end so can award a respectable:

6/10

This is one of those films I didn't find bad, but not special either, and in time probably will be forgotten. It plays like a TV movie or an episode from an 80s detective series. Nothing grabbed me. There are a few twists towards the end, but still nothing to write home about.

Alice Eve was pretty good as the motel owner, but Ursula Parker was very bad as her daughter. Thank goodness she was only in the film a few moments. Logan-Marshall Green was incredible, although we only got to see his full potential during the film's climax. Bryan Cranston was ok as the villain, but that terrible accent!!! Have mercy on my ears!

The rest of the film was standard fare we've seen before with a predictable - yet satisfying - ending. Nothing about the film's title will make me remember this.

It's clearly a low cost movie, but it's well done! Well produced and acted. COLD COMES THE NIGHT is a little story about money, crime and betrayal where nobody can be claimed as innocent… Money is the centre of the entire plot and what a person can do for money is its main message… In fact, CHLOE (played by Alice Eve), the main character of this movie, seems, at the beginning, just a "normal" mother which has a hard life to sustain her daughter (and herself) working in a Motel as a receptionist; but along the movie we see she's as manipulative, greedy and criminal as the mafia's guy (TOPO, played by Bryan Craston) or the corrupt cop (BILLY, played Logan Marshall-Green), her ex-boyfriend. During the plot she proves she can do everything for money and even the excuse that it's all in the name of her daughter – to get some money to start a new life and give her better life conditions – seems a very little excuse to me. She did the same crimes for money as the other guys… I did appreciate this movie because it was quite entertaining, well-acted, and tells us a dark story about money and corruption in a very simple but realistic way.

What's to like ? Mood intense and stale at times grotty and unforgiving at other times when Russian mobster near blind speaks ... too much cliché.

Frame plot and execution ? Some poor choices is being made. As for realism it workes rather convincingly. It has no real action moments, but I keep thinking John Woo. Perhaps because of the stand-offs that happen between the trio of power and interests: Cop - Motel mother - Russian Mobster

When would it be any better ? In the frame and plot ? Not much room for any further development in the characters.