If you don’t know the story of Mafia hitman Richard Kuklinski, it’s definitely one that is worth reading into. The man was as cold blooded of a killer as they come. He takes the screen in a new film portrayed in chilling fashion by the always intimidating Michael Shannon. Directer Ariel Vromen helms the project in his biggest movie to date.
The most important part of the film was the casting of their disturbing anti-hero, and they couldn’t have picked a more appropriate killer than Michael Shannon. He is an intimating force who is believable as the mass murdering Richard Kuklinski who brutally kills for the Mafia. Although you mostly see the brute side of this character there is also something more, even if it is way deep down there. He does so in order to support his wife Deborah (Winona Ryder) and his two daughters Anabel and Betsy (McKaley Miller/Megan Sherrill). You do see a man who does have love for his family and who does whatever it takes to support them, even if it means killing people for a living.
Kuklinski ends up hanging around the wrong sort of people, bumping shoulders with Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta), a heavy associate of the Gambino family. Liotta plays the typical intimidating crime boss in a role that is pretty predictable and expected for him at this point. Demeo sees something in Kuklinski and finds that the man will kill whoever he asks him to without any hesitation. Demeo’s team also includes Josh Rosenthal, who is played by David Schwimmer in a weird turn that will have you forgetting his role in Friends immediately. An ever weirder turn was Chris Evans as the creepy Mr. Freezy who is also a hired killer who drives an icecream truck that often will carry dead bodies that are frozen along with his ice cream. It took me almost the entire duration of the film to realize that it was Evans, who is the furthest removed from his typecast as can be.
What you get from The Iceman is a lot of brutal kills, gore and stuff that are just necessities in a movie about a killer such as The Iceman. You get plenty of that, trust me. What you don’t get is enough solid development from any of the characters, even The Iceman himself. You’re thrown into his story, upon his first date with his future wife, and then the meeting of Demeo. A little more introduction and time spent with finding out who he was and how he got this way would have made a big difference. You do get the occasional flashback and minor explanation but it didn’t do enough to really flesh out his character and make me care for him. The best kind of crime movies are when you actually find yourself sympathizing with the character even if he is killing people for the mafia. This wasn’t the case for The Iceman.
The Iceman was just missing something that kept it from being a much better film. The direction is solid with a cold dark tone that perfectly suited the cold nature killing of it’s protagonist. However the film left me a bit too cold as it never really found anything that made it particularly great or memorable. It’s a shame because Michael Shannon really gave his all. The Iceman is worth watching for the story alone, but I couldn’t help feel that it could have been much, much more.
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