By:  Kristy Puchko

After riveting dramatic performances in five seasons of Breaking Bad, it’s dizzying to remember Bryan Cranston as the daffy dad on the quirky sitcomMalcolm in the Middle. Few actors can pull off the comedy and drama with the ease Cranston can, and for his next feature he’s taking menace to a whole new level, playing a cruel criminal in the indie drama Eye of Winter.

Variety reports Cranston will co-star with Men In Black 3‘s Alice Eve andPrometheus‘ Logan Marshall-Green. She’ll play the owner of a floundering motel whose taken hostage—along with her daughter—by Cranston’s crook, who is nearly blind, and so uses the two abductees as his eyes while he tries to get a payday from a dirty cop played by Marshall-Green. Ursula Parker from TV’s Louie has also signed on, presumably as Eve’s daughter, as has Leo Fitzpatrick, who may be best remembered as Telly from Larry Clark‘s disturbing teen drama Kids, though his role is unknown. The drama will be writer-director Tze Chun‘s follow-up to celebrated festival favoriteChildren of Invention. Oz Perkins and Nick Simon, who co-wrote the 2010 thriller Removal, also contributed to the screenplay.

This sounds like a deeply promising project for Cranston. While he offered memorable dramatic turns in Drive and Argo, he was a supporting player in both. Here, he’s the male lead, and it seems like a gritty role he can really sink his teeth into. Likely confined to a cramped hotel room, and thriving on its claustrophobic atmosphere, Eye of Winter sounds like a chilling crime drama out of the 1950s, like The Night of the Hunter. It’s unknown when this feature might make it to theaters, but it sounds like one worth looking out for.

Source: Cinema Blend