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How entertaining? ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 28 May 2013
This article is a review of THE ICEMAN.
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“If you can follow orders, you have everything to gain,” Roy Demeo to Richard Kuklinski
The contract killer movie has a fine pedigree in certain quarters, from LOOPER and NIKITA to GROSSE POINT BLANK and COLLATERAL. In the same way as cinema like THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS fascinate, there is something repulsive and wholly gripping about the amoral able to repeatedly take a life. However, the subgenre can get real lazy (see ASSASSINS, THE WHOLE NINE YEARDS, etc.). THE ICEMAN stands out solely for the fact that it is based on a true story. Not many thrillers have that to underpin the carnage. That though is one of the few plus points, as great actors are squandered in a lacklustre, poorly paced take on predators.
The contract killer movie has a fine pedigree in certain quarters, from LOOPER and NIKITA to GROSSE POINT BLANK and COLLATERAL. In the same way as cinema like THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS fascinate, there is something repulsive and wholly gripping about the amoral able to repeatedly take a life. However, the subgenre can get real lazy (see ASSASSINS, THE WHOLE NINE YEARDS, etc.). THE ICEMAN stands out solely for the fact that it is based on a true story. Not many thrillers have that to underpin the carnage. That though is one of the few plus points, as great actors are squandered in a lacklustre, poorly paced take on predators.
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From 1964-86 Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon) killed numbers into triple figures. A character study exploring such a man should have gripped, especially with Shannon, a modern thesp encapsulating screen intensity, e.g. TAKE SHELTER, SHOTGUN STORIES, REVOLUTIONARY ROAD. However, the soon-to-be General Zod in the new Superman is not utilised to his full potential. All the filmmakers seem to desire for him is to be menacing: Menacingly threatening people, menacingly murdering people, menacingly wooing his future wife (Winona Ryder – in a thankless role), menacingly being protective of his family. You get the picture; there’s a lot of menace emanating. We watch Kuklinski stab someone for insulting his lady, work in the pornography business, and eventually get hired to snuff out certain undesirables for psychotic boss Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta). Kuklinski comes across as a total douche, except for the love he holds for his kin.
There is no apparent curiosity here in what makes such a person, or what drives them. There is just a catalogue of events strung together sans panache.
There are hints at something deeper. A particular interesting sequence involves discussing god during a job, but we are left hanging, as THE ICEMAN fails to delve. Instead we get clichés – he doesn’t kill women and children – so says every movie hitman. Yawn. Chris Evans plays a rival gunman, and is his usual likeably cheeky foil. The ilk of James Franco and a ponytailed David Schwimmer crop up, but just feel like stunt casting. What drew them to this (apart from getting to sport a ponytail)?
The balancing act of family and crime has now been exemplarily done on the small screen (THE SHIELD, BREAKING BAD, DEXTER); so if you’re going to tackle similar themes, you better be on form.
The court case dealing with the aftermath is barely a footnote. Wouldn’t it have been bold to divide THE ICEMAN in two: Deal with the atrocities, and then how the mess got untangled, if it ever was? Events get repetitive; maybe my suggestion is not too far off? Imagine what a Scorsese or a P.T. Anderson might have sculpted from the material…
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