Based on the true story of a mob hitman who was believed to have killed over 100 people, "The Iceman" is a story about a very, very bad man who does very, very bad things without really feeling much about it one way or another. Kuklinski's main deal is that he's a very angry person with little to no control over himself, and tends to solve problems by hurting/killing things. So, when in the late 70's the mob-run porn racket he's working for is shut down, the local mafioso running it (Ray Liotta) decides Kuklinski would make an excellent hitman. He's right about that, and Kuklinski becomes a legendary killer over some 20 years.
I said before that I'm not a huge Michael Shannon fan, and while this hasn't made me a convert or anything I will admit that he's really good in "The Iceman." He's got this great duality going on, where he'll be a stone faced killer one minute, with eyes that look like they're ready to fire lasers out of them, and the next minute he's with his family and that hardness melts away. But there's always those eyes of his that never soften. To paraphrase Robert Shaw, Kuklinski's got dead eyes that don't seem to be living until he shoots you. It's a great performance.
"Is that a gun in your hand or are you just...oh."
Most of the movie is watching Kuklinski brutally kill people with emotionless efficiency, and while it can border on repetitive, it's never so over-the-top as to feel gratuitous. Don't be mistaken, though, the film isn't a highlight reel of gore or anything. In between all of that death is the shocking balancing act that Kuklinski does with his wife and children, who somewhat unbelievably have no idea that he's a mob hitman.
Winona Ryder plays his wife, Barbara, and while it's easy to not like her character simply because she is so dense as to not have any idea what's going on, Ryder is charming and quite believable in the role. She provides a much needed juncture between the two different worlds, and I found her to be charming and I felt really bad for her and her two daughters because we all knew that eventually the jig is going to be up, and Kuklinski is going to be outed as the monster he is.
There's quite a number of celebrity cameos in this, of varying degrees of usefulness and celebrity. David Schwimmer has a decent if slightly hard to buy role as a lowlife mobster, and much like his part in "Band of Brothers" as a drill-sergeant, he actually does a very good job with the exception of being hard to take seriously because he's David freaking Schwimmer. Chris Evans plays a serial killer who gets around in an ice cream truck, which is weird, and James Franco even shows up for about 47 seconds for a single scene in which he has like a dozen lines and then gets shot. But he's James Franco so he got slapped on the DVD cover and has featured billing. Whatever.
Nearly his entire performance is spent cowering. Oh well. Still better than "127 Hours."
A guy who surprised me was Stephen Dorff, whom I didn't even recognize at first since he's rocking a sweet mustache. Like Franco he's got a single scene, but Dorff absolutely tears it up with the short screen time he's given. He's playing Kuklinski's brother who is behind bars for the rape and murder of a young girl, and he begs Richard to help him out and asks for money to hire a better lawyer to hopefully spring him. When Richard refuses, it gets ugly quick, and Dorff is scary intense. In fact it's probably the best acting I've ever seen out of him. I guess I'm just too used to seeing him in Uwe Boll productions to give him much credit.
I know that this isn't a very accurate biography of Richard Kuklinski in many ways. Most of the negativity coming down on it from general consensus concerns the fact that the film skips a lot of important things during his upbringing, and makes him out to be a much nicer guy than he was in real life where his family is concerned. And it's true that the film makes him out to be a caring father who doesn't care for anything else in the world other than his family, when in real life there was literally nothing nice about him at all.
It's like if Mitt Romney and Bruce Campbell merged and then became a cartoon character...
All that being said, "The Iceman" still succeeds as a chilling, rather bleak drama about a professional hitman, even if they're taking liberties with the truth. But hey, that's film, right? That's why it says "Based on a true story." I'm not looking for a documentary with this: I'm looking for a well made film.
Check out the trailer for "The Iceman."
THE BOTTOM LINE - "The Iceman" is an entertaining crime drama that manages to be both fascinating and repulsive at the same time. While you see horrible things happening throughout, it's nearly impossible to look away. This is mostly due to Michael Shannon's performance, which by itself is worth the price of admission. The dude's eyes can set you on fire from the other end of the room, I swear. This one is worth a look.
No comments:
Post a Comment