Dinheiro Sujo

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.

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.

Cold Comes the Night kept me tense and engaged all the way through. The characters were refreshingly multi-layered, the cinematography was fantastic, the soundtrack was well-matched (that song at the end was killer!), and Cranston, Eve, and Parker's performances were stellar, which is the result of excellent directing as well as acting.

I don't understand why certain viewers felt like the twists and turns were illogical--while there are a few extreme moments, I thought the characters' actions and reactions were consistent with what we knew about them. The less predictable behavior kept me interested in the two main characters, who had much more depth than the characters that usually star in this genre.

My only complaint is that I did not get to see this film on the big screen. I can't wait to see more of Chun's work!

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".