Cold Comes The Night

Studio: Stage 6 Films / Samuel Goldwyn Films
Directed by Tze Chun

Jan 10, 2014 By Austin Trunick Web Exclusive

In director Tze Chun’s economical thriller, a single mother (Alice Eve) becomes entangled in a dangerous plot when she and her daughter are kidnapped by a murderous criminal (Bryan Cranston) and forced to help him locate a bag of stolen cash belonging to his boss. Impaired by his failing sight, the hardened killer uses the woman and child as his surrogate eyes as he sets out to recovers the bundle of money from the crooked, small-town cop (Logan Marshall-Green) who took it.

Cranston has plenty of menace left over following the end of Breaking Bad, and his fans will forgive the distracting Polish accent he keeps up through the film to see him dropping cold threats again. Alice Eve is also well-cast as the mother with her back against the wall. Cold Comes the Night moves at a fast pace, and only comes up short when certain elements feel skimmed over. (How did an Eastern European criminal land a job in middle-of-nowhere upstate New York? How did this sweet woman become entangled with a bad cop’s prostitution ring?) Answers are given, but far too late; by then, it feels less like secrets being explained than loose ends dutifully being checked off.

Reviews