i must have seen a different film!!

A lot of fun.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

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.

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

Bryan Cranston plays someone with an accent and it really works. We knew he is a good actor (especially those who've seen Breaking Bad), but him playing with that foreign accent is setting him apart from previous roles. I don't know if it was in the script or if he decided to go that way, but whatever the case is, it was genius.Alice Eve as mother standing tall against what is happening to her (from all sides that is), plays it really good. A nice thriller that has many ups and very few downs during the running time. It might be predictable, but that doesn't take away the fun you can have while watching it. Nice thriller with great performances and some graphic violence

Some people like this movie, while others have found issues with it. As for me, while I wouldn't call the movie perfect, I found myself interested with what was going on right to the end. Yes, there are some nagging questions that are never answered, like why the central female character didn't put her money in a bank, or why she couldn't find a new place to live when she owned a motel. And there are a few unbelievable decisions by the characters - for example, TWO characters each have a scene when they don't repeatedly hit a person threatening them. But despite these problems, there is a lot to enjoy here. The acting is solid, not just by Bryan Cranston but also the no name supporting cast. The story has some good (and believable) twists and turns, enough that I could not predict what would happen at the end. And the production values are good for what had to be a low budget. The movie is 78 minutes of good entertainment. Yes, I know the running time is 90 minutes. That's because the end credits run a whopping TWELVE MINUTES! Still, you don't have to sit through them, so that's a minor quibble.