The Iceman

Michael Shannon should get at least an Academy Award for his performance in this movie. This guy can act and you lose the person and totally see the characters he portrays. Reminds me of Daniel Day Lewis.

Anyway, I had never heard of this Kuklinsky person and it was interesting to see his story. The multiplicity of his lifestyle had to be a killer (no pun intended) to live out. I don't know of many actors who could go from one to the other so effortlessly. From cold-hearted killer to nice person to ragging man to loving husband and father. Michael Shannon can do this well. And those subtle expressions of his! They're great. Icy. Kind. Murderous.

I'm not a fan of Winona Ryder but I liked her portrayal of the Mrs. in this movie. She was believable and really had the suffering wife thing down.

While leaving the movie I ran into a gentleman who had watched the actual documentary of Kuklinsky's life and he said the movie was a good portrayal of the facts. That is a good thing to hear because this kind of story like lends itself to Hollywood sensationalism. And while some of that may have happened, it was a good movie about a bad man. Did I feel sorry for Kuklinsky at the end? Yes...well actually it was pity that I felt.

Greetings again from the darkness. Dramatizations are at their best when actual footage of the subject or event doesn't exist. They can be an effective way to highlight a particularly interesting story or person with details we might not otherwise access. Richard Kuklinski's story is fascinating and frightening. He is known as the mob's most prolific hit-man/contract killer. Writer/director Arial Vromen has adapted Anthony Bruno's novel for the screen, and wisely cast Michael Shannon in the lead. It makes a nice companion piece to the chilling 1992 documentary The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer.

The movie is dominated by the hulking presence of Shannon as Richard Kuklinski. Shannon is no match for the physical size of Kuklinski, but his movements and the camera angles capture the powerful and imposing monster that he was. If you are unfamiliar with Kuklinski's story, he killed somewhere between 100-250 people. His missions were carried forth in cold-blooded, heartless and widely disparate manners. Additionally, he often dismembered his victims and froze bodies and parts to prevent the actual time of death from being established. He was good at his job, but hardly a good guy. But wait! Not so fast ...

Kuklinski was also a husband a father of two daughters who made up what appeared to be a lovely, normal family in suburban New Jersey. This guy had an internal switch he flipped from the street to the dining room table. When he was captured, his wife and daughter claimed they had no clue what he did for a living (he had told them he was in Finance). Sure, they admitted to his having a wild temper and even threatening his wife a few times, but they never once considered that he was a cold-blooded killer by day and neighborly barbecue dad on weekends.

Winona Ryder plays Deborah, Kuklinski's wife. Before you roll your eyes, you should know that Ryder is exceptional in the role. Her tease in Black Swan gave us hope she had returned to form, but this turn displays the talent we always knew was there. The always dependable and creepy Ray Liotta is perfectly cast as Roy Demeo, the mobster for whom Kuklinski worked. The scenes with Shannon and Liotta together are bone-chillingly frightening. Chris Evans (light years from Captain America) plays fellow hit-man Robert Prongay aka Mr Freezy. Kuklinski credits Prongay with valuable insight into poison and disposal of bodies. It's heart-warming to see that even contract killers have support groups. Other support work comes courtesy of David Schwimmer as Josh (Demeo's right hand man), Robert Davi (as Leonard Marks. Demeo's link to the family head), James Franco (as one of the hits), and Stephen Dorff as Kuklinski's incarcerated brother Joey.

Childhood flashbacks give us the table-setting necessary to understand the balance of nature v nurture in the Kuklinski household. Still, no matter how much abuse or misery one has a child, it's difficult to comprehend the stoic evil that possessed Kuklinski. And to be clear, Michael Shannon's performance is his best yet ... and that is saying a great deal. He has become one of the most interesting actors - one who can take the lead as he does here and in Take Shelter, or as a scene-stealing supporter in Revolutionary Road, Mud and the upcoming Man of Steel (as General Zod). He's not a flashy actor, just an extremely talented one.

Vromen captures the gritty feel of the nearly three decades of "family" life in a manner that reminds of Kill the Irishmen ... the Ray Stevenson take on Danny Greene. The atmosphere and inner turmoil are similar, but there is no comparison the Kuklinski evil. Should you doubt this, I would highly recommend the documentary previously mentioned. Watching the actual dead eyes of the real Richard Kuklinski as he talks about his life is beyond horrifying.

Having read Philip Carlo's biography of Richard Kuklinski 'The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer', I can say that Ariel Vromen's big screen adaptation 'The Iceman' is a big disappointment. While the author had a habit of repeating himself and some of Richard's recollections seemed rather dubious in places, Carlo's lengthy book was an engrossing read, I enjoyed it very much.

The problem with the film is that it's awfully constructed; it's all so terribly rushed. It fails to develop both the narrative and subsequently the character of Richard Kuklinski, glossing over almost everything that made the book such an interesting read. I appreciate that cramming one's life story into a screenplay can be a difficult task, however there are major flaws in the script that could have easily been avoided - the screenplay should've been scrapped and completely rewritten.

His unspeakably awful childhood, for instance, is covered with an utterly perfunctory flashback scene that lasts for all of about 15 seconds. This is a fatal mistake, because it was his harrowing formative years that shaped Richard.

Stanley Kuklinski, his deeply cruel father, conditioned his son with the daily violence he inflicted upon his whole family. After Stanley dealt Richard's brother Florian a particularly malicious beating, he died from his injuries; the police were told that he fell down a flight of stairs. Richard's mother was also a callous, unpleasant person; despite her zealous religious values she had no qualms about battering her children with a broom handle. Even when Richard sought solitude in the placidity of his local church as an altar boy, nuns would punish him by splitting the skin on his knuckles with the edge of a metal ruler. All of the relentless anguish was compounded by his family's total destitution.

When 13-year-old Richard also became the victims of local bullies, it all became too much for him - he beat one of them to death with a pole and discarded his body with brutal efficiency. Kuklinski recalled that it was at this moment that he discovered 'it was better to give than receive'. The passages of Carlo's book that cover his youth make for appalling reading; unfortunately none of this power is to be found in Ariel Vromen's rather boring adaptation.

Lacking also are the details of Kuklinski's career. The book recalls Kuklinski's methods of murder, the way he stalked his prey and his utter indifference towards his victims' suffering. Very little of this was explored in the film, we get little more than a brief montage of random people being blown away - it's all so damn rushed and disorganised. Considering what a desperately violent individual Kuklinski was, 'The Iceman' is a rather neutered production. It has none of the visceral qualities that shock you like in 'The Godfather' and 'Goodfellas', mob films that draw you into their brutal world where death is merely 'business'.

Not only is the narrative woefully underdeveloped but it's also sheer fiction in many instances. Despite having great dramatic material to work with, Ariel Vromen and Morgan Land decided that their own version of events were better. Even the more faithful scenes have been tweaked and messed about with for no discernible reason. For example, Roy DeMeo didn't introduce Kuklinski to contract killing, he had already had a career with the DeCavalcante New Jersey crime family and had killed scores of people both professionally and privately. It also forgets to depict the savage beatings Richard used to give his wife Barbara and the pernicious effect it had on the family dynamic.

As you have probably heard, Michael Shannon is the highlight of the film. Much like the real man, he has a steely reserve and an explosive temper; he also resembles him in both appearance and speech. However, despite his best efforts, Shannon is completely let down by the script. While Shannon is indeed cold and calculated, the film fails to truly capture Kuklinski's aura of menace and particularly his notoriety in Mafiadom.

While the performances are fine, 'The Iceman' is quite frankly ruined by total underdevelopment. If I had entered the film with no knowledge of the man, I would have found it a boring, mediocre mob film. But knowing the depth and drama of this tragic figure means that 'The Iceman' is a complete misfire that deserves much more, ideally a remake. The only thing that it successfully achieved was the credibility of its period styling.

The Iceman was an enjoyable movie with very good acting, but ultimately quite unrealistic.

The Iceman, Richard Kuklinski, comes off as a very sympathetic character in the end, whereas in real life he truly was a cold emotionless and sociopathic killer. His family weren't so much cherished and loved as they were possessions that were his and his alone.

Much has been learned about sociopathy by interviewing Kuklinski, but unfortunately none of this was used to shape and portray his real character in the movie. Nonetheless, the movie is worth seeing, but more as entertainment than enlightenment about Kuklinski's life of crime.

Wow!! What a great feature film for Michael Shannon to display his range of acting and depth of character portrayal as the real New Jersey contract (serial?) killer, Richard Kuklinski. Michael Shannon has played dark brooding characters before such as in his roles in movies like My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, as Brad McCullum, The Man of Steel as General Zod, and in Take Shelter as the father Curtis LaForche, of a family who believe his fixation on building an underground shelter is too extreme. He also plays a dark brooding character in Boardwalk Empire, whose role evolves from a former Prohibition Agent on the run after murdering his partner, to the muscle for a bootlegger. In my watching Michael Shannon evolve as an actor over the past 20 years of film making, I believe he has found his true calling in the mobster/crime genre.

The supporting cast is very strong with Winona Ryder playing the feeble Deborah Kuklinski, the wife of Richard Kuklinski. In actual life Richard and Deborah Kuklinski had two daughters and one son. The movie however depicts the Kuklinski's as only raising two daughters. The reason for this deviation in art imitating life may be to reveal a more softer, caring husband and father Richard Kuklinski, doting over the three women in his life. Which brings me to what I believe the director Ariel Vromen was looking to achieve with this film. Ariel Vromen was on record in stating that after he watched the real Richard Kuklinski HBO documentary The Iceman Tapes: Conversations With A Killer that he "was so amazed by the story that he actually liked Richard Kuklinski and had empathy and sympathy for him."

Some movie goers will not appreciate the lack of gratuitous violence that would have been expected from the real contract killer Richard Kuklinski. So if you are expecting to see a very violent and physical Richard Kuklinski character, the director Ariel Vromen has purposely excluded the violent bloody side of the actual vicious killings of Richard Kuklinski displayed in other movies like Goodfellas, or the Godfather.

Another strong performance was displayed by Ray Liotta who portrays Roy DeMeo a loan shark and drug pusher who is trying to control Richard Kulkinski as his own killing machine. Robert Davi as the middle man between the real mob bosses and Roy DeMeo who wanted more recognition from the mob was well done. Davi, only has a few scenes in the movie, but each of his scenes is significant for the historical references that unfold. Totally away from the humorous character David Schwimmer is known for in the TV series Friends, as Ross Geller, Schwimmer does an excellent job playing Josh Rosenthal, a henchman for mobster Roy DeMeo.

Chris Evans portrayal of Robert Pronger, aka Mr. Freezy, was eerily real to character and a very creative role. He plays a lone wolf who mentors the Iceman and exposes Richard Kuklinski on more practical ways to murder people. Again, the gratuitous violence is very soft core of these two contract killers who are displayed cutting up body parts and loading them in to walk in freezers. The movie is less than two hours long and to capture approximately 30 years of Kuklinski's rampage is difficult to say the least, so I appreciated that the director chose to focus on Richard Kuklinski's multiple characters as the devoted family man. cold blooded killer and lack of emotion or fear, due to flashbacks of his own early childhood abuse at the hands of his father. Stephen Dorff plays Richard's brother Joseph, who true to life was serving a life time term for raping then throwing a teenage girl to her death off the top of a roof. Richard and his brother Joseph were not close in real life and when they were both imprisoned in the same cell block they merely shrugged shoulders towards each other in passing. Why? The real Richard Kuklinski felt his only true family was his children and wife, as portrayed by director Arial Vromer's The Iceman.

This is a must see for any enthusiasts of the real criminal world true stories. It boasts a seasoned group of veteran actors who shared the screen with star Michael Shannon. It is two hours of excellent historical reference minus much of the bloodshed and violence one can see in any one of thousands of B movies if this is what you really want to see.