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    

The Place Beyond The Pines - Review

The Place Beyond The Pines
(2013 - March 29)
Crime | Drama
2 hr. 20 min.

Rated: R  Very strong language throughout, some graphic violence, teen drug and alcohol use, and sexuality. Common Sense Media says Iffy for 16+  Read more (I personally would not subject a 16 year old to this film)
Grade: B+

Director: Derek Cianfrance
Writers: Derek Cianfrance, Ben Coccio, Darius Marder
Stars: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes | See full cast and crew

The highly anticipated new drama from director Derek Cianfrance ("Blue Valentine") powerfully explores the consequences of motorcycle rider Luke's (Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling) fateful decision to commit a crime to support his child. The incident renders him targeted by policeman Avery (Golden Globe Award nominee Bradley Cooper), and the two men become locked on a tense collision course which will have a devastating impact on both of their families in the years following. (c) Focus

Budget: $15 Million

Box Office: $6,725,100 (Worldwide as of 18 April, 2013). Critics have praised the film as have the audiences that have seen it. It just hasn't been seen by that may people, toned down language probably would have generated a larger audience and box office.

Watching The Place Beyond The Pines is not a pleasant experience and it most definitely isn't for everyone. The characters for the most part are not sympathetic or at all admirable, portraying one failed life after another. There is, however, a little something about Ryan Gosling's screen presence as Luke that draws you in and makes empathize, encourages you to root for him to succeed, to changing his life, there is something compelling, something attractive about this looser, like there's a 'boy next door' just under the surface that is still reachable. His performance in this film is perhaps the best of his career, but 99% of the characters in this film, and that includes Luke, are simply conscience and 'moral-free'.

The language is extremely coarse and onerous, and reflective of the baseless lives of the characters portrayed but I thinks there are ways to express that point without lying down in that very same gutter. Without the profanity the film could have reached a much broader audience, and consequently earned a much bigger box office.

Life in this town is depressing, rudderless and seemingly void of hope. I really was not looking forward to seeing The Place Beyond The Pines. I don't think pleasantly surprised would be the appropriate term but I was in deed surprised by how intriguing the film was. It's a bit like an accident...you don't really want to see the carnage but once you get a glimpse it's hard to look away. These people are the ones that your parents warned you as a child to steer clear of. They are products of the failed post 50s educational system that threw God and morals under the bus in pursuit of the so called, modern, enlightened, secular humanism and a pagan mythological Gaia centric environmentalism. In short, these people are troubled, aimless and Godless, their human misery is none the less tragic and compelling.

The Place Beyond The Pines is a three act story of how a bad decision can destroy your life and the devastating impact it can have on all of those around you, the Domino effect, a story of how the sins of the fathers will be visited upon their children. It is gritty and harsh, in some aspects like last year's People Like Us, the difference between the two is that this time the acting is up to the task. The performances by  Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper are truly first rate.

Act I revolves around Luke the Ryan Gosling character and his life choices; Act II focuses on Avery the Bradley Cooper character an his life choices; and Act III reaping the fruit of these two trees, lays bare the lives of the sons of these two men.

I recommend it with reservations: The performances are excellent and it is well made storytelling, if you want to take a peek into the belly of the beast, but it is harsh, gritty and you are subjected to lots of F words. Act I is filled with profanity, anger, violence and futility; Act II is filled with corruption with a slight reprieve from the language, violence, betrayal and futility; Act III returns to the profanity and wallows in teen angst, drugs, drinking, sexuality, hatred, revenge and futility.

If you don't think you can sit through the language (something I hate, one of my movie pet peeves) you will probably want to pass on this one.

The Story: Luke Glanton (Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling) is a motorcycle stunt rider they call Heart Throb. On his motorcycle it says 'Handsome Luke' but his good looks are marred by cheap, tacky, tasteless tattoos, the epitome of  'white trash'.  He's a high-octane motorcycle stunt performer, in constant motion, traveling from town to town with the carnival. While passing through upstate New York, he tries to reconnect with a former lover in Schenectady, Romina (Eva Mendes). He is surprised to learn that in his two year absence she has given birth to his son Jason (Dane DeHaan). Luke decides to quit the carnival and forsake life on the road in order to become a stand-up dad and provide for his new found family, of course it doesn't matter to Luke that Romina has a new man in her life, Kofi (Mahershala Ali), who is raising Jason as his own.

Luke turns to Robin (Ben Mendelsohn), an auto repair shop owner, for part-time employment as he continuously attempts to insert himself into his son’s life but minimum wage doesn't cut it, Luke asks Robin for more money. Robin says there is a way, he reveals that he was once a bank robber, and suggests they  partner to hit some banks in the area. The team perform some successful heists, in which Luke performs the robbery, uses his motorbike to getaway and drives it into an unmarked truck driven by Robin. Luke uses the new money to win back Romina’s trust and visits her, her mother and his infant son at the home of  Romina’s new partner, Kofi. Kofi’s end up having a confrontation which results in Luke’s arrest for assault after he hits Kofi in the head with a wrench.

Robin bails him out of jail and Luke immediately wants to resume robbing banks. Robin refuses, not wanting to press their luck, and the two have a falling-out that results in Robin dismantling the motorbike to put an end to it. Luke takes back the bail money he owed Robin at gunpoint. Luke attempts to rob another bank on his own but that decision puts him on a collision course with Officer Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper). Luke is pursued by police falls off his bike during the chase and seeks refuge in a nearby home, Averys follows him into the house and Luke realizes he is trapped, sensing defeat, he locks himself in a bedroom upstairs and calls Romina. Just before Avery confronts him, Luke asks Romina not to tell their child about who he was.

In Act 2 the narrative switches to Avery Cross an ambitious rookie cop navigating a department ruled by the menacing and corrupt detective Deluca (Ray Liotta). Avery is just starting to balance his professional and family life with wife Jennifer (Rose Byrne) and their infant son AJ (Emory Cohen), when fate forced him into the confrontation with Luke, the full consequences of this meeting will reverberate into the next generation. It is then, in the final Act, that the two sons, Jason and AJ, will face their fateful, shared legacy inherited from their fathers.

Behind the scenes on the set.

 

Cast

     Ryan Gosling          Bradley Cooper   

    Luke Glanton                   Avery Cross    

 

    Eva Mendes            Mahershala Ali         Dane DeHaan  

  Romina                                  Kofi                                  Jason    

     Rose Byrne              Emory Cohen  

    Jennifer                                  A J         

   Ben Mendelsohn           Ray Liotta       

      Robin                                Deluca