The Iceman (2012)

A life of crime. Are some people genetically predisposed to crime or is it all about choices?

In this hard hitting drama, we follow the rise and fall of Richard Kuklinski played utterly convincingly by Michael Shannon. The man who terrorised many, yet he was a faithful and devoted dad and husband where the constant struggle is shown in keeping the balance between a life of crime and family harmony.

One scene I find particularly mesmerising is when he visits his brother in prison and as he is about to leaves his brother shouts that since are both born criminals they shall both end up in jail.

Kudos to the makers for conveying tension and emotion in the correct dose. My only remark would be that it kind of lost its way between being a crime drama and autobiography, however whilst it successfully is a bit of both, I sort of craved it picked a genre and dig a little deeper.

Fmovies: With 2011's Take Shelter, Michael Shannon is proving to be a fascinating leading man. Just through his presence, he can convey that unstable line between sanity and insanity and bad and good. You can just tell his inner conflict is going to explode at boiling point. It's unfortunate that while Shannon certainly transforms into the 'iceman,' The Iceman's script doesn't call for much of his range. Instead, it's a moody gangster film that revels in the moments where it can step just beyond the clichés while still pressing all the standard buttons. It's interesting in these kinds of scenes where a mob boss forces an associate to give to a homeless person or Shannon lets James Franco's cameo pray to God just to see what happens. It's a well-acted film, particularly Winona Ryder standing out in the supporting cast and it's very slickly made. But the fundamental problem with the film is its rhythm. The editing is constantly hectic even at the smallest things. There's no natural fluctuations that give emotional moments gravitas or action moments excitement. It does end up fatiguing and it lessens the sense of journey and change. Nevertheless, it's still a wickedly entertaining thrill ride to the end, just blunt at its edges.

7/10

Having read and seen the documentary about The Iceman I was a little scared that they would have gone all Hollywood on it but I was pleasantly surprised.

A few details of his life were not accurate, but the movie does not focus on that anyhow. What it did do, was to show the man as what I would have imagined him as. Anyone that has seen the movie I'd recommend that you google the documentary about him. In the final scene of the movie Michael Shannon manages to catch his persona insanely well. Almost gave me the chills how well he acted in the last scene, not to say the whole movie.

Hands down one of the best depicted movies on a real world person. And if you haven't seen the documentary watch it first, it won't spoil the movie but it will give you a reference point on the man.

The Iceman fmovies. 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 Irishme

Having developed a morbid fascination with serial killers over the past few years, I was delighted to hear that Richard Kuklinski, one of the most prolific and emotionless mass murderers in history, was to be given the cinematic treatment. Not only was his story ripe for a juicy adaptation, but Michael Shannon, the most consistently mesmerising actor working in film today, was cast as the titular Iceman. Sadly, inexperienced director Ariel Vromen, who up to this point had only made two films I've never heard of, has delivered a by-the-numbers biopic; one that follows familiar genre conventions and whitewashes Kuklinski's story completely in favour of a formula that a mainstream audience can comfortably follow.

After being impressed by his towering frame and generally intimidating nature, mob boss Roy DeMeo (Ray Liotta), who is in the employ of the Gambino crime family, takes the young Richard Kuklinski under his wing. To get a feel for him, DeMeo tells Kuklinski to kill at tramp in broad daylight, to which Kuklinski coldly obeys . Soon enough, Kuklinski is carrying out mob hits for DeMeo, while telling his clueless wife Deborah (Winona Ryder) that he is in finance. He meets fellow contract killer Robert 'Mr. Freezy' Prongay (Chris Evans), who teaches Kuklinski the benefits of using cyanide to carry out the murders, and then freezing the bodies to rule out a time of death. But with DeMeo coming under pressure from his boss Leonard Marks (Robert Davi) for a drug deal gone wrong, Kuklinki finds himself and his family under threat.

What might have been a fascinating insight into the inner workings of a sociopath, The Iceman is nothing more than your standard straight-to-DVD mobster movie. Completely ignoring Kuklinski's natural instinct for murder (he was a serial killer long before the mob approached him) and his reputation as a merciless and cruel man, beating and killing men for the slightest of reasons, Vromen even adds a family angle that is completely untrue. To give the lead character a bit of recognisable humanity, here he is portrayed as a loving family man, dedicated to his wife and kids as the mob close around him. In fact, in real life Kuklinski was an aggressive wife-beater; a tyrannical king of the household who regularly committed acts of physical and mental abuse on his family.

Artistic license is a right that every film-maker has when conducting a biopic, but when there's a complex and fascinating story to tell, however dubious some of Kuklinski's claims are (he claims to be responsible for the murder of Jimmy Hoffa), then why make such drastic changes if all you're doing is making your subject the same character seen a thousand times before? Shannon deserves better than that, and his unnerving performance is one of the few saving graces here, but his character is reduced to nothing more than a standard mobster, seduced by the lifestyle and cutting himself off from regular life. He was a cruel, savage monster, who disposed of some of his victims by having them eaten alive by rats (or so he claims), or in one incident, he allowed his victim time to pray to God to see if he would answer his prayers, before killing him (this scene is played out in the film with James Franco as the victim).

Plot strands veer off path and are offered no resolution, making them completely redundant. Some are intriguing, such as Stephen Dorff's appearance as Kuklinski's imprisoned paedophile brother, who hints at Kuklinski's dark childhood and abuse. Others are not,

In 1964, Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon) dates Deborah Pellicotti (Winona Ryder) and kills a man that made an offensive comment about her during a game of pool. The violent Kuklinski works dubbing porn films but he tells to Deborah that he dubs Disney cartoons. Soon they get married and have two daughters. When his boss Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta) closes the laboratory where Kuklinski works, he is invited to work as contract hit man after a test killing a homeless man. Along the years he works for Roy but he falls in disgrace when he let a teenager hooker that witnessed a killing freely go since he does not kill children. Kuklinski begins to work independently as a free-lancer irritating Roy that threatens his family and him. In 1986, Kuklinski is arrested by the police after committing more than one hundred murders.

"The Iceman" is a film with the impressive true story of a family man and notorious cold blood killer. It is impressive how a man could be a good father and husband and also a contract killer and hide this secret from his family for twenty-two years. The great cast is another plus in this great film. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Homem de Gelo" ("The Iceman")