Bryan Cranston was in serious danger of typecasting himself as Hal, father of Malcolm in the Middle and his unruly brothers. And in those heady days of Breaking Bad season one, Walter White’s goofy, heavy-handed approach to his new line of work was reminiscent of the hapless dad Cranston once portrayed.

Bryan CranstonBryan Cranston in Cold Comes the Night

Now, the multi award-winning actor is known by every TV fanatic, and, by extension, their friends who get ‘you have to watch Breaking Bad’ in their ear every five seconds as Mr. White – the meth-producing chemistry teacher who consistently dives in well over his head.

His new film, ‘Cold Comes The Night’ will see Cranston perform another transformation as he shakes off Mr. White and adopts Topo. Although this time, he won’t have to alter his technique so much, as Topo is a dangerous criminal a la Heisenberg.

The change in acting style has been dramatic, but it flows in a poetic fashion. Hal’s hilarious antics bled with White’s ridiculous situations and the measures he took to solve them. As Breaking Bad progressed, White become more ruthless, more capable. Now, he’s playing a fully fledged criminal.

Check out the trailer for Cold Comes the Night

As Tope, Cranston takes a hotel owner (Alice Eve) and her daughter (Ursula Parker) as hostages in an attempt to take back what is his: a bundle of cash from a corrupt cop. It’s being billed as a taut thriller, and from the trailer we can already see a fully evil Cranston.

Cold Comes the Night is director Tze Chun’s follow up to 2008’s highly rated Children of Invention. The film achieved a 73% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with positive reviews from The Los Angeles Times and The New York Post. Cold Comes The Night is due for release in the UK on September 20th 2013.