Cold Comes the Night Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Cold Comes the Night Blu-ray Movie Review

Chilly.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 3, 2014

The Bible says that "the love of money is the root of all evil." What it doesn't say is that it's also the root of a lot of mediocre movie plots. Cold Comes the Night is the latest in a long and mostly undistinguished line of films in which an innocent person, usually someone dealing with financial problems, is caught up in the middle of a power play between several rather bad people who are maneuvering to get their hands on some large stash of cash. Director Tze Chun's (Children of Invention) film feels as if on life support from its open forward, failing to break free from tired genre convention, content to go through the motions and leave audiences feeling as if they've seen the movie before and hoping they never see it again. It's competently assembled but features a total lack of imagination as it procedurally moves from A-to-B-to-C with the predictability of the sunrise and the general disappointment moviegoers know all-too-well.

In danger.

Chloe (Alice Eve) is a single mother who runs a sleazy motel with a reputation for drugs and prostitution. She's down-on-her-luck, barely making ends meet, and to make matters worse, the state has deemed her current situation unfit for daughter Sophia (Ursula Parker) and threatens their separation unless Chloe can improve their living conditions in two weeks time. When an odd but otherwise seemingly innocuous motel patron named Topo (Bryan Cranston) takes her hostage, her world is further upended. Topo demands that Chloe help him track down a large sum of cash that's gone missing. Their quest to find the money leads them to Chloe's lover, a corrupt cop named Billy (Logan Marshall-Green). Soon, they find themselves in a web of danger and double-crosses that could spell disaster for all involved.

Cold Comes the Night is best described as a "standard operating procedure" Thriller, a movie that seems to aspire to nothing more than covering well-treaded ground. There's precious little real, palpable tension released during the film as it casually maneuvers around a predictable and play-it-safe arc that fails to develop its characters beyond its core needs and never once finds a sense of urgency or purpose (beyond advancing the plot) in its story. It's absent any real deep themes, substituting emotion and human interest with stale dialogue and meaningless cliché. To its credit, there's an effort to build up its story through tension rather than cram it with needless action. The problem is that the tension is negated by that overabundance of banality. The result is a picture that drags not because it needs more violence but because it needs more focus and originality within the pieces in play.

Fortunately, a quality cast evens things up a bit and keeps the movie afloat, albeit barely. Breaking Bad fan favorite Bryan Cranston does what he can to find some depth to his character and the story, which isn't much. His efforts, ultimately, end without much success. His performance -- complete with a distracting Eastern European accent -- manages to push the character in the right direction but fails to find the nuance necessary to sell the end. The scripted arc takes a rather flat trajectory, resulting in not so much an unbelievable resolution but certainly one that could have been developed a bit better along the way. Cranston's work is proof-positive that good actors can elevate great material but that even the best will struggle to breathe more than cursory life into a mediocre part. Alice Eve, likewise, does what she can to advance the story of a character saddled with a terribly unoriginal story arc. She plays the "desperate/protective mother" role well enough, though there's a clear absence of real emotion not because her performance is in any way weak but because her surroundings never allow for much more than a straight-and-narrow push on her character's instincts.

Cold Comes the Night Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cold Comes the Night may not be the most compelling film released to Blu-ray, but Sony's technical presentation treats it as such. The 1080p, 1.78:1-framed image looks quite good across the board. Detailing ranges from excellent to exquisite, revealing complex textures on faces and clothes as well as stones, bricks, pavement, crumpled money, and broken glass with striking lifelike accuracy. Image clarity is superb, helping to mask what is a slight sense of flatness in an otherwise outstanding picture. Colors generally favor a rather cold appearance; the image is heavy on blue and gray shades, with a sightly drained-looking palette. A few spurts of more vibrant colors, such as bright orange jacket seen in chapter ten, does provide a nice contrasting explosion of brightness. Black levels are deep and accurate, and flesh tones don't appear to betray natural shades. The image suffers from no discernible technical flaws, either. Overall, this is the expectedly rock-solid presentation from Sony.

Cold Comes the Night Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Cold Comes the Night's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack replicates the film's slightly subdued, dialogue-heavy presentation nicely. The spoken word indeed dominates, and it comes through with commendable accuracy through the front-center portion of the stage. Music plays smoothly and effortlessly across the front and enjoys a balanced supportive rear channel presence. Ambient sound effects play evenly around the stage; of note is a realistic blowing wind heard from inside at film's start. Scattered action sound effects play with natural presence and clarity. A few gunshots pop with authoritative, though not quite lifelike, presence, both those fired in the open and, in one scene, inside a car. Overall, this is a quality, though rather nondescript, listen.

Cold Comes the Night Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Aside from an assortment of previews for additional Sony titles, Cold Comes the Night contains only the following deleted scenes: Topo and Big T in Diner -- Alternate (2:59), Topo Questioned by Police (0:43), Chloe Apologizes to Topo (1:24), and Chloe Hides Money (1:54).

Cold Comes the Night Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cold Comes the Night is a generic Thriller from top to bottom. The story lacks creativity and the direction is straightforward but the performances are fine within the screenplay's unimaginative boundaries. Even so, the solid lead cast cannot do much more than keep the movie afloat. It's a disappointing affair all around, not a terrible movie by any stretch of the imagination but definitely one of the most forgettable films of 2013. Sony's Blu-ray release of Cold Comes the Night features strong video and audio. Supplements are limited to an quartet of deleted scenes. Skip it.