He cometh . . .
The H-Bomb: A few years back, a filmmaker friend of mine showed me an HBO documentary about Richard Kuklinski, who worked for nearly 20 years as a hit man for the mob. What made Kuklinski so unique, aside from his versatile methods of killing, and the way he disposed of his victims’ bodies, was that during his entire career as a contract killer, he had a family that had not the slightest idea what he did for a living. This whole set up would seem way too far-fetched if it wasn’t true… however, it was.
What I found most chilling about Kuklinski, who was interviewed in prison for the documentary, was how casual and dispassionate he was when recounting his crimes. He would tell a story about killing his victims in the same way that anyone would tell any old anecdote. He was a man with no conscious, no soul, and when he passed away in prison back in 2006, the world lost nothing of value. The impossible challenge facing co-writer/director Ariel Vromen in making this feature film version of Kuklinski’s life, is creating a character who is equally as frightening as the real man. Did he? No, however, he and his lead actor, the ever formidable Michael Shannon, come just about as close as anyone could have.
Starting in the mid-1960’s, The Iceman covers, in a rather straightforward manner, Kuklinski’s career as a professional killer. From how he goes from making and selling copies of porno movies, to being recruited by gangster Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta, playing the same kind of big mouthed hood he’s been playing since Goodfellas) as an assassin, after he witnesses a flash of Kuklinski’s violent side after one of his thugs tries to get rough with him. In his new role as a hit man, Kuklinski has found his true calling. He is efficient, he is ruthless, he is cold as ice.
Kuklinski is also successful at keeping his profession a secret from his nice wife, Deborah, and his two lovely daughters, who think that he works as a currency exchange broker. Living an ideal life in an ideal suburban home, they are blissfully ignorant when it comes to how daddy puts food on the table. Eventually, Kuklinski meets a fellow hit man, Mr. Freezy (Chris Evans), who conducts business out of an ice cream truck. Mr. Freezy teaches Richard some new and creative methods with which to take out his targets, such as cyanide, and a new way of disposing of bodies. A method that involves the ice cream truck, and that earns Richard Kuklinski his infamous moniker, The Iceman.
Our two killers fall into a cozy arrangement in which Freezy sets up the hits, and Kuklinski carries them out. Pretty simple. But what would happen if Kuklinski were to have a falling out with Roy the gangster, and Roy the gangster in turn made a threat towards his wife and children? Even worse, what if the cops discovered a partially frozen corpsical, thus catching on to the Iceman’s disposal methods? Kuklinski’s neatly ordered world may just start to fall apart around him…
As I stated earlier, Michael Shannon does as good a job bringing this unabashed sociopath to life as anyone could. In fact, he does better than good… much better. For most of his career, he’s played characters who fall outside of what we would consider normal, and here, he delivers a performance that could go down as one of the all time greats. He completely inhabits Richard Kuklinski and brings every facet of the man, from the kind family man, to the stone cold killer, so vividly, that he almost, not quite, but almost made me forget about the real Iceman. That calm yet intense stare that he would use on his unsuspecting prey, and his sudden switches between pure tranquility and violent rage were especially unnerving.
In case I haven’t made it clear, Shannon is nothing short of brilliant in the role, no question, and he’s surrounded by a first rate ensemble, including Ryder and his dutiful wife, who begins to suspect that her husband is not what he seems, and Evans, who is often funny in his solid supporting turn as a rather mellow assassin. Even James Franco makes a lasting impression in his few minutes in which he plays a sleazy pornographer who the Iceman is tasked with dispatching, as does David Schwimmer, who is surprisingly good as a low level mafia flunky.
If nothing else, The Iceman has a pitch perfect cast. Unfortunately, that cast is much better than the film itself, which is merely all right. Director Vromen captures the look of the 60’s and 70’s to a T, and really nails the seediness of the underworld from the era. He depicts the violence with a brutal, unflinching eye, and he keeps the film clipping along at a decent pace, considering the amount of ground he has to cover, but, at the end of the day, I simply was not as involved with the story as I knew I should have been. The whole thing is shot in a pseudo-documentary style, with a certain cold, dry sense of detachment, and it was that distance that kept me from being fully caught up in the characters and immersed with what was happening on screen. It’s difficult to put my finger on it, but there was just something missing… some sense of emotional involvement that would have made this good movie great.
But, what The Iceman does not lack is an exceptionally strong central performance. It really is a shame the overall film isn’t better, because Shannon absolutely kills it with a true award caliber showing, and it is his uber-disturbing performance that makes The Iceman a must see. Ever since World Trade Center back in 2006, Shannon has proven himself to be an actor worth paying attention to, and here, with this sick, true life character, he has delivered a performance that I can easily, with all the confidence in the world, say is his best.
