Purely Joyful Movie!

Great Film overall

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

After seeing her in the superb 2010 indie films Please Give and Everything Must Go,I went on Netflix UK to find other movies starring Rebecca Hall. Whilst looking up Hall flicks,I spotted a (non Hall) Neo-Noir on the front page that I remember reading a very good review by Kim Newman a few years ago,which led to me finding out how cold the night could be.The plot:Taking care of her daughter Sophia on her own after her husband dies in an accident,Chloe makes ends meet by running a motel. A former girlfriend of police officer Billy,Chloe keeps him informed of all the pimps and gangsters that stay at her cheap place. Getting the cash for their client "transporter" Topo and a relative hide it in their car,and each get a separate room at Chloe's. Meeting a call girl,Topo's relative gets in a row which leaves him shot dead. Finding out the next day that the cops have taken the car as evidence,Topo takes Chloe hostage,and demands that she gets this transporter back on track.View on the film:Referencing the title,co-writer/(with Oz Perkins and Nick Simon) director Tze Chun & cinematographer Noah Rosenthal give title a frosty appearance reflecting the cold harsh light of day that the crimes take place in. Cracking open Topo's task with short,sharp shots of violence,Chun peels Chloe's motel walls for a seedy Neo- Noir atmosphere,where the limited room in the place feeds into a cramped feeling.Keeping Topo as a man of few words,the screenplay by Chun/ Perkins and Simon drills a menacing Noir loner aura into him,as Chloe tries to find common ground with Topo,but discovers his backstory to constantly escape her. Although they melt the ice for an ending that is far too sickly sweet,the writers do very well at layering the Noir anxiety that sits between Chloe and Topo,as Topo's ruthless threats force Chloe into accepting the package of becoming a transporter.Hiding behind cool shades, Bryan Cranston gives a tense performance as Topo,who is given a tough edge by Cranston of believing that the way of the gun is better than any words. Pulled out of her confined safe space, Alice Eve gives a gripping performance as Chloe,thanks to Eve at first sending Chloe out shivering like a leaf,but slowly turning Chloe into a quick-witted outsider,as coldness enters the night.

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".

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

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.