The Iceman: One cold-blooded killer

When director Ariel Vromen first approached Michael Shannon about playing hit man Richard “Richie” Kuklinski in his biopic The Iceman, Shannon at first suggested he might want to find a bigger star to carry the movie. But Vromen insisted that Shannon take the lead role; it’s a good thing he did. Shannon completely inhabits the character and all his contradictions, turning the film into an intriguing portrait of a dispassionate man who led two completely different lives (Kuklinski was a cold-blooded killer by day and a fiercely loyal family man by night).

While Kuklinski was abused as a child and reportedly logged his first kill when he was still in a teenager, Vromen’s film focuses doesn’t focus on that part of his life. Rather, it centers on the period during which Richard worked for mob man Roy DeMeo (Ray Liotta). Upon their first meeting, Roy challenges Richie to kill a homeless man. When Richie pulls the trigger without remorse, Roy is impressed and hires him to be his hit man.

Richie kills relentlessly until Roy starts getting some heat and puts him on hold. That also means Richie’s not pulling in any income to support his wife (Winona Ryder) and kids in their nice big house in the suburbs. Richie needs the cash. So he starts freelancing with Robert “Mr. Freezy” Pronge (Chris Evans, channeling Sam Rockwell), a hit man who rides around in an ice cream truck that doubles as cold storage for dead bodies. Their relationship goes well for a while but they eventually part on bad terms (really bad terms) and you just know it’s a matter of time before Richie gets nailed.

Shannon is terrific as Richie and in the film’s final sequence he evokes the serial killer/hit man perfectly reenacting an interview that was featured in the HBO documentary that made Vromen want to make a biopic. While the film’s subject matter makes for some gruesome scenes, the film doesn’t revel in the violence like many other gangster films have.