Review- Cold Comes the Night (2014)

After the majesty that was Breaking Bad, there's just no way that we can pass up watching any movie that involves Bryan Cranston... even if the character he's playing is some nearly-blind hitman named Topo, who speaks with an awkward Armenian accent. *In all fairness, Topo's accent could be either Russian or Polish, we just couldn't tell, and it was never made clear by the movie itself. Let's just settle on "Slavic" and call it a day.

Cold Comes the Night not only gives us Cranston playing another shady character ala Heisenberg, but it adds to the mix the hotness of Alice Eve, which instantly made the whole thing seem even more intriguing to us.

Cold Comes the Night feels like a modern-day, noir-ish kind of flick, and we think that's kind of good?

Chloe is a hot single mom (no stripper) who owns a motel which is frequented by whores, junkies and scumbags. Since this is obviously no place for her adorable little daughter Sophia to grow up in, a social worker gives her two weeks to find a better place for them to live, or Sophia is going into foster care.

Enter Topo; the going-blind Slavic hitman who is on the hunt for a large sum of missing money, which he'll kill anyone to retrieve. Things go haywire, and Topo is forced to enlist Chloe in his mission, because she can still see really well. She's eager to help him, for a cut of course, so she and her baby girl can leave the motel life behind.

Together they set out to find Topo's missing money, which leads to them evading the Police, battling a corrupt Cop-Pimp, breaking into into various places, and killing a bunch of people.

Every heist/double-cross/Crime Thriller you've ever seen, ensues.

"I am zee vun who knocks, yes?"

It's a simple story, it's a familiar plot, and the movie is nothing all that mind-blowing, but we still found ourselves enjoying it on some level, despite those facts. Truth be told, if either Bryan Cranston or Alice Eve hadn't been in this movie, we probably wouldn't have even watched it. As it turns out, they basically carry the movie with their talent, making what is a fairly bland and predictable story, pretty watchable.

Cranston is the man, we all know this. He's been one of the best dramatic actors on TV for years now, and he's more than earned a little bit of blind allegiance (no pun intended) from us based on his work on Breaking Bad alone. Alice Eve is a solid actress too; sure she's gorgeous, and who wouldn't want to watch her just "be" on screen, but she carries her dramatic weight in just about everything she's in, and especially so here.

There's a decent body count in this one too, which is always fun.The action scenes are pretty well done, and the movie has a nice, dreary feel about it. It's a simple movie that does the whole cat-and-mouse thing fairly well, and ends up being a serviceable Thriller that showcases the two strong performances from Eve and Cranston to good effect.

It's a middle-of-the-road, decent watch. No more, no less.

It's alright, Alice. It was mostly good.

Cold Comes the Night wasn't anything great, but we still managed to get something out of it. If you enjoy the average Direct-to-Video Thriller that seem to randomly show up on Showtime at 3 a.m., then you'll most likely enjoy this one too. It honestly felt like any of the hundreds of other Crime Caper flicks that we've seen over the years, but watching Cranston and Eve do their thing made it mostly redeemable, and a fairly decent watch.

Cold Comes the Night is available on VOD now.

C

What a great excuse for us to highlight the beauty of Alice Eve via multiple photographs!