Susan Granger’s review of “The Iceman” (Millennium Entertainment)
Inspired by actual events, this is the sordid story of unrepentant hit man Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon), who murders more than 100 men in and around New Jersey between 1964 and 1986, as his adoring wife and devoted daughters suspect nothing.
Opening with the question: “Mr. Kuklinski, do you have any regrets for the things you’ve done?” –there’s a flashback showing how, back in 1964, hulking, young Richie began dating sweet, unsuspecting Deborah Pellicotti (Winona Ryder). Telling her that his job involves dubbing Disney cartoons, he observes that she’s prettier than Natalie Wood. In actuality, Richie bootlegs porno pictures, when he’s not violently stabbing, shooting or bludgeoning anyone who annoys him. His malevolence attracts the attention of local gangster Roy DeMeo (Ray Liotta), who hires him as an enforcer. Dubbed “the Iceman” because he freezes the bodies of his blood-splattered victims to disguise their time of death, Kuklinski then works as an assassin for various East Coast crime families, often using cyanide since it kills quickly and is difficult to detect in toxicology tests.
By the time Richie and Deborah marry and produce a couple of daughters, he’s earning enough in ‘currency exchange’ to move to suburbia. A former altar boy, he insists that the girls – Anabel and Betsy (McKaley Miller, Megan Sherrill) – attend Catholic school, as Deborah naively believes they’re living the American Dream.
Based on Anthony Bruno’s true-crime novel and an HBO documentary, featuring interviews with incarcerated Kuklinski before he died at age 70 in 2006, the script is by Morgan Land and Israeli-born director Ariel Vromen. Unfortunately, while a neo-noir tension abounds, there’s no psychological profile that would explain Kuklinski’s sadistic, psychopathic behavior as he deliberately leads a double-life.
Michael Shannon’s menacing performance and Winona Ryder’s poignant beauty are the only saving graces in this grimly bleak, contemptibly cold-blooded endeavor, wasting supporting turns from James Franco, Stephen Dorff, Chris Evans, Robert Davi and David Schwimmer.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Iceman” is an intensely ferocious 3, glorifying a dour, dangerous, despicable man.
