There is always a certain amount of pressure on TV stars who turn to films. We have certainly seen this happen on several occasions in the past, Jennifer Aniston’s career never really managed to get past her turn in Friends, as goes for the rest of the cast, James Gandolfini was always known as “that guy from the Sopranos“. Working for a successful television series can bring a lot of extra opportunities, but you will never escape that great role.
The same goes for the star of the wonderful Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston. Sure, he has a LOT of movie credits to his name, but it is going to be incredibly difficult for him to get away from the defining role of his career, the wonderfully brilliant Walter White. Cranston’s depiction of the ill chemistry school teacher who turns to drug dealing is so well-known and monumental, he may well spend the rest of his life trying to get away from it.
Unfortunately, his turn in Cold Comes the Night reeks of slight desperation, trying to put as much distance between himself and Walter as his humanly possible.
The film begins with an introduction to Chloe (Alice Eve), a single mother who lives with her daughter in a motel on the outskirts of a mostly deserted town. Struggling to provide a good life for her child, Chloe gives in to letting the wrong sort of clientele into the motel. She just about manages to keep enough money to eventually move away with her child, until one night things go terribly wrong.
In the middle of delivering money as a the result of a job, Topo, an elderly almost-blind criminal and his driver stop off in the motel for the night. Unfortunately, the driver doesn’t exactly want to sleep, and following a struggle with a prostitute in his room, ends up killing her. When his jeep is towed after the murder, Topo realises the money is also gone. Without good vision, he holds Chloe hostage and makes her bring him to the money which he needs to return to his boss. However, events continue to spiral out of their control.
Despite the fact that this is literally nothing you haven’t seen before, Cold Comes the Night really drags for its ninety minutes running time. Unfortunately, the entire film is just far too predictable to allow the viewer to be entirely interested in it. It’s almost as if it tries too hard.
On top of this, the script is completely deplorable, again predictable and just bordering on cheese in parts.
Cranston’s performance doesn’t help this at all; most of the time you are expecting Walter White to emerge from under his incredibly strange accent and tell you that he just needed to lie so he could go do some more cooking. Alice Eve as Chloe is reasonable, but is most certainly nothing to write home about.
This is nothing you haven’t seen before…
