The Iceman - Review

The Iceman
(2013 - May 3 - Limited Release)
Crime | Drama | Thriller
1 hr. 45 min.

Rated: R strong violence, pervasive language and some sexual content  Read more
Grade: B-

Director: Ariel Vromen
Writers: Morgan Land (screenplay), Ariel Vromen (screenplay), Anthony Bruno (book "The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer"), Jim Thebaut (documentary "The Iceman Tapes: Conversations with a Killer")
Stars: Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder, Chris Evans | See full cast and crew

Inspired by actual events, The Iceman follows notorious contract killer Richard Kuklinski (Academy Award (R) nominee Michael Shannon) from his early days in the mob until his arrest for the murder of more than 100 men. Appearing to be living the American dream as a devoted husband and father; in reality Kuklinski was a ruthless killer-for-hire. When finally arrested in 1986, neither his wife nor daughters have any clue about his real profession.(c) Millennium 

The Iceman is a drama thriller film based on the life of notorious Mafia hitman Richard Kuklinski. It was released in 2012 at the Venice Film Festival. The Iceman premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. It also screened at the Telluride Film Festival in 2012. The Iceman had a limited release in cinemas in the United States on May 3, 2013 expanding onto more screens May 17th.

The Iceman is a dark film, certainly not everyone's cup-of-tea. The direction and script, I think, could have been better, it needed to tell us more, delve a little deeper into what was going on in Richard Kuklinski's mind, help us fathom how someone can so compartmentalize his life, it's a question that just hangs out there waiting to be answered but never is.

The Iceman has the makings of a bloody good crime flick with some mobster drama tossed in for added depth.

The strength of The Iceman rests in the hands of Oscar-nominee Michael Shannon who takes the lead as the eponymous Iceman who, by some accounts, is believed to have killed more than 250 people between 1954 and 1985. This film has a host of other talented actors in the supporting cast which includes Winona Ryder, Chris Evans, James Franco, Stephen Dorff, David Schwimmer, and Ray Liotta. 

Winona Ryder is, well, pretty much what you expect, Winona Ryder, but the cast's most surprising performance comes from Chris Evans, Captain American himself, who is barely recognizable as The Iceman's mentor and accomplice. We usually see Evans as the clean cut good guy, he is so NOT that guy here, it's quite intriguing to see him expanding his repertoire as he treads some new water.

James Franco (127 Hours, Oz The Great and Powerful) does justice to his limited screen time. Stephen Dorff (electronic cigarette hawker, Shadow Boxer) is adept at playing an amoral sleazebag. David Schwimmer (Friends) is another surprise in the same vein as Chris Evans, but not nearly as captivating. Ray Liotta in a mob drama is always a sure bet.

I am always intrigued when something appears on screen that has a link to myself or someone or something close to me. Aside from the fact that I have driven all over the state of New Jersey did I find something in The Iceman? Why yes, I did.

Just a little tidbit of trivia: In the film Mr. Kuklinski's first daughter is born in a hospital in Elmer, NJ. Elmer just happens to be a small southern New Jersey town that was named after a distant ancestor of mine. Judge L.Q.C. Elmer, or Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus Elmer, some name eh? He muxt have been named after someone right? Right. Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus (519 BC – 430 BC?) was a Roman Statesman and military leader (As seen below).

Well, once again I digress, so enough of the trivia and on to my final comment on The Iceman. Unfortunately this film employes the full lexicon of crass, lewd, rude and profane language. It is, however, surprisingly less pervasive, gratuitous and offensive than many other recent films (i.e. Savages, End of Watch, The Master, This is 40, Pain and Gain, or Ted or Magic Mike,  just to name a few).

Barbara Kuklinski: Life married to the Iceman killer was no Hollywood movie

Barbara and Richard Kuklinski as teenagers. Photo: Courtesy of Barabara Kuklinski/ Mainstream Publishing

Richard Kuklinski killed hundreds in his job as a Mafia hit man - a job he managed to keep secret from his wife and children. As Winona Ryder plays her in a film based on the 'Iceman' case, his widow Barbara tells her true story to Adam Higginbotham.

When they finally came for him, in their unmarked cars and their helicopters, with their machine guns at the ready, Barbara Kuklinski still had no idea how her husband might have broken the law.

It was a cold morning in the week before Christmas, 1986, and the couple had just pulled out of the driveway of their split-level home on Sunset Street, a quiet road of comfortable middle-class houses in Dumont, New Jersey, where they lived together with their three children. Barbara, a tall, delicate-looking Italian-American, and Richard, 51 – a colossal slab of a man with a fondness for a Meerschaum pipe – had been married 26 years, and were well-regarded by their neighbours. They were on their way to breakfast at the Seville in nearby Westwood, where they ate together most mornings. But when Richard saw the column of black vehicles bearing down on them, he turned sharply into the curb; armed men swarmed around the car; one leapt on the bonnet; another tore open the driver’s door and held a cocked automatic at Richard’s head: “Don’t f------ move,” he said.

Barbara was pulled out and thrown to the ground by policemen, a foot planted in the middle of her back. Hands cuffed behind her, she was bundled into a car for the journey to the Bergen County Jail in Hackensack. There, as state troopers fought to subdue her enraged husband – according to Barbara, despite being shackled hand and foot, he shrugged and tossed three of them down the stairs – she struggled to grasp what was happening.

Finally, detective Pat Kane came to her and said simply, “He’s a murderer.” Abruptly, all the odd things she had noticed about Richard over the years, the incidents she had been too terrified to tell anyone about, tumbled into alignment. “And all of a sudden it was like, ‘I knew that,’” she says now. “I knew he was a murderer.”

Throughout their marriage, Richard Kuklinski had used the façade of the suburban family man – an usher at Mass every Sunday, barbecues by the pool in the summer, annual trips to Disneyworld – to conceal a litany of killing. There were murders committed in anger, others just for fun and still more for profit. For 20 years, he had made his living as one of the most proficient and prolific contract killers in the history of organised crime, a professional hitman whose claims of freezing his victims’ bodies to outfox forensic experts led the media to nickname him the Ice Man. -- By Adam Higginbotham, New York

The Stars at various red carpet events.

Cast

Michael Shannon        Chris Evans     

Richard Kuklinski             Mr. Freezy        

   Stephen Dorff          Winona Ryder    

  Joey Kuklinski              Deborah Pellicotti

                                             Kuklinski 

   David Schwimmer      James Franco      

   Josh Rosenthal               Marty Freeman  

        Robert Davi               Ray Liotta        

 Leonard Marks                     Roy Demeo