Cranston plays Topo, a low-level Russian mobster who ends up at a shitty motel run by single mom Chloe (Alice Eve) and her ridiculously adorable daughter (and a pet turtle named Mr. Jones, who gets more than his share of screen time). When bad luck and a crooked local cop interrupt Topo’s money-muling operation, he forces Chloe to help him track down the missing cash. The twist: Topo is mostly blind, and thus constantly in need of assistance, even though he’s a ruthless murderer.
Cranston’s accent is underplayed at its best and ridiculously distracting at its worst: Sometimes he’s believable as a Russian, other times he sounds German, and in one notable moment, he seems to be channeling Dracula. (“Little girl… you have jacket?”) The street-smart motel mom—who’s also, it should be noted, being threatened by Child Protective Services just for having her adorable, well-adjusted daughter living in a seedy motel that she runs—hatches a plan to slice herself a piece of the mob money, because hey, the mobster’s blind anyway and won’t notice her spiriting it away.
It’s a story straight out of a bad ’80s movie that seems to think it’s building Fargo-level characters. It isn’t. Limited, convenient backstories, a villain—that dirty cop—so unbelievable in his actions he might as well be twirling his mustache, and performances that flit from daytime-soap to B-movie level (The Wire’s Leo Fitzpatrick is especially wasted) add up to something that’s been done many times before and much better. Bryan Cranston is a weighty presence, to be sure, but he can’t keep a whole movie from blowing away in the wind.
