Title – The Iceman (2012)
Director – Ariel Vromen (Danika)
Cast – Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder, Chris Evans, Ray Liotta, David Schwimmer, James Franco, Stephen Dorff
Plot – The Iceman looks at the life and times of real life hitman Richard Kuklinski who over his time in his profession knocked off a reported 100 targets. Richard’s biggest feat however was his ability to hide his profession from his family including his loving wife Deborah (Ryder).
“I only feel alone around other people”
Review by Eddie on 2/10/2013
For a true life story about arguably one of the most notorious mob hitman in history (kill total suspected to be over 100 victims) The Iceman sure does a good job of being pretty uninteresting and uninvolving for the majority of its relatively short running time. The reason behind this mediocrity can be attributed to the films lack of quality control and production.
Working on a seemingly small budget Iceman can’t help but feel like a TV movie. From the cookie cutter vintage costumes, dank and dull cinematography and some truly bad facial hair Iceman just oozes a b movie despite the presence of many a recognizable actor and a story just ready to be told again in a more involving fashion.
Michael “crazy eyes” Shannon is milking his cooped up psychopath skitch for all it’s worth and here as real life hitman Richard Kuklinski has his moments but one can’t help but feel it’s nothing new from him and he seems better as lost cause Nelson Van Ulden in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire or playing bit part roles in films such as Revolutionary Road. The rest of the cast don’t really register and some actually did themselves no favours appearing in this – here’s looking at you in particular David Schwimmer but Chris Evans, James Franco and Winona Ryder aren’t to far behind.
Iceman like it’s main man is a cold entity. Not once does it seem like there is any real effort to connect in a meaningful way and jumps in time and seemingly missed plot points work against the film and therefore it seems permanently stuck in 1st gear. Despite its premise and interesting cast Iceman is one film you can cross of your kill, I mean watch list without a moment’s hesitation.
2 ponytailed Ross from Friends out of 5
Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys) 
I really liked this flick, especially all the performances. Definitely not for everyone though. Terrific write-up!
Cheers Jo, I wanted to like it a lot more than I did and speaking with a friend he said compared to the book on which this is based the movie doesn’t compare. Thanks for stopping by mate.
Eddie
I did like this a lot too, but all of your observations are completely valid. It felt too much like a TV movie at times, but one still can’t deny how good Michael Shannon is in losing himself into yet another somewhat compelling character. Good review dude.
Cheers Tom – As much as I do love Shannon I would love to see him tackle a more “normal” role, I think he was great in Take Shelter and even as a bit player in Mud. I think this story will be one day re told in a more high quality production to do it real justice.
Eddie
Being familiar and fascinated with the story I will probably watch this but may not expect too much. Nothing could be more engrossing than the story they did on the BIO Channel.
I will have to track that down Parlor, as I felt the movie missed quite a bit of engrossing detail I’d like to know more about.
Eddie