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The Iceman (2013)

tomatometer

68

Average Rating: 6.2/10
Reviews Counted: 115
Fresh: 78 | Rotten: 37

While it deserved stronger direction and a more fully realized script, Michael Shannon's riveting performance in the title role is more than enough to make The Iceman recommended viewing.

63

Average Rating: 6.5/10
Critic Reviews: 30
Fresh: 19 | Rotten: 11

While it deserved stronger direction and a more fully realized script, Michael Shannon's riveting performance in the title role is more than enough to make The Iceman recommended viewing.

audience

72

liked it
Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 13,014

My Rating

Movie Info

Inspired by actual events, The Iceman follows notorious contract killer Richard Kuklinski (Academy Award (R) nominee Michael Shannon) from his early days in the mob until his arrest for the murder of more than 100 men. Appearing to be living the American dream as a devoted husband and father; in reality Kuklinski was a ruthless killer-for-hire. When finally arrested in 1986, neither his wife nor daughters have any clue about his real profession.(c) Millennium

R,

Mystery & Suspense, Drama

$1.9M

Millennium Entertainment - Official Site External Icon

Cast

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All Critics (115) | Top Critics (30) | Fresh (78) | Rotten (37)

Even the always-watchable Shannon can't give much life to Kuklinski's two-dimensional presence: he's little more than a series of murders and pained looks.

June 4, 2013 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Shannon gets at his character's pent-up torment as well as his efficient disconnect. When his two worlds start to converge -- on his daughter's sweet 16th birthday, no less -- you feel for him.

May 17, 2013 Full Review Source: Denver Post
Denver Post
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A true-crime thriller directed with grit, gristle and punchy energy by Ariel Vromen, The Iceman is never less than fascinating, even if things get a little ham-fisted here and there.

May 17, 2013 Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia Inquirer
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As the body count mounts, the movie begins to spin out of control, but Shannon and Vromen don't let it derail. Their focus keep things from melting down.

May 17, 2013 Full Review Source: Detroit News
Detroit News
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Michael Shannon is an overpowering actor, and in The Iceman, the best that he can do is wrestle the movie around him to a stalemate.

May 17, 2013 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail
Globe and Mail
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It's a fascinating subject - the beast that lurks inside the family man - but the movie blows it.

May 16, 2013 Full Review Source: Boston Globe
Boston Globe
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The killings quickly begin to bleed into one another and it's sometimes hard to sort out the identities and roles of everyone involved.

June 16, 2013 Full Review Source: Movie Talk
Movie Talk

Ariel Vromen doesn't do so much in terms of the story (which spans 20 years, with corresponding hair fluctuations), but he seems to know his violence, and he's a true artiste when it comes to the queasy polyester ambience that holds this thing together.

June 14, 2013 Full Review Source: Film Comment Magazine
Film Comment Magazine

The film is able to capture its period setting, but the script is a collection of generic Mafia dialogue and cliched violent shootouts.

June 12, 2013 Full Review Source: Cinemalogue.com
Cinemalogue.com

The Iceman is dark and gritty but there's not enough excitement or tension to really pull you in.

June 12, 2013 Full Review Source: Fan The Fire
Fan The Fire

Shannon's mesmerising performance has a Frankenstein edge to it.

June 11, 2013 Full Review Source: Birmingham Mail
Birmingham Mail

Mistaking leaden atmosphere for gravitas, Vromen turns what could have been a vibrant period drama (it runs from the 1950s through to Kuklinski's arrest in 1986) into a sludgy ordeal ...

June 10, 2013 Full Review Source: Scotsman

A truly mesmerising turn by Shannon that allows him to cultivate all his ugly thoughts into one brooding menace ...

June 9, 2013 Full Review Source: HeyUGuys

As a chronicle of one of America's most infamous criminals, it's a chilling one. Much of that credit must go to Shannon however, who delivers inspired work sometimes in spite of the mostly conventional feature around him.

June 8, 2013 Full Review Source: Quickflix
Quickflix

Much more involving than the usual hitman thriller, this film takes a deliberately personal approach to its characters that makes it unusually involving.

June 7, 2013 Full Review Source: Contactmusic.com
Contactmusic.com

Both compelling character study and well crafted mob thriller ...

June 7, 2013 Full Review Source: Daily Express
Daily Express

What makes it at all special is Shannon, who's terrific playing the human being behind the murderer, a man so psychopathic that he doesn't realise he's actually a monster posing as a man.

June 7, 2013 Full Review Source: Radio Times
Radio Times

The Iceman is a welcome adult thriller and its neat period touches will help to transfix many from start to finish.

June 7, 2013 Full Review Source: Birmingham Post
Birmingham Post

While Shannon delivers a typically mesmerising performance that elevates everything around him, the film itself isn't up to the same high standard.

June 6, 2013 Full Review Source: Flix Capacitor
Flix Capacitor

Unfortunately, the movie runs out of things to say about its monosyllabic hero within a half-hour, after which the killings become repetitive.

June 6, 2013 Full Review Source: Daily Mail [UK]
Daily Mail [UK]

The Iceman is like a gangster's cold locker: all the nutritive items have been taken out to make room for the dead bodies.

June 6, 2013 Full Review Source: Financial Times
Financial Times

Nothing else in Ariel Vromen's movie is remotely on Shannon's level, from the plodding, Scorsese-clone script to the needlessly lifeless editing and cinematography.

June 6, 2013 Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph
Daily Telegraph

Suspect barnets aside, there's not a lot to take away from this by-the-numbers genre piece.

June 6, 2013 Full Review Source: Little White Lies
Little White Lies

Engaging and enjoyable true-life thriller, enlivened by some impressive production design work, a strong script and superb performances from Michael Shannon and Winona Ryder.

June 6, 2013 Full Review Source: ViewLondon
ViewLondon

In the end, The Iceman seems like a missed opportunity, as Shannon's authority as the lead is undeniably tantalising.

June 5, 2013 Full Review Source: Electric Sheep
Electric Sheep

Audience Reviews for The Iceman

Michael Shannon's terrific performance makes this film a slightly above average crime biopic.
August 23, 2012
Liam Gadd

Super Reviewer

We're fascinated by hired killers. Chalk it up to morbid curiosity or perhaps perverse, secret wish fulfillment, but we're all titillated a tad by the murderous for hire. The Iceman is all about Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon), who worked as a contract killer for the mob from 1966 to 1988. He's estimated to have killed over 100 people. A mob middleman (Ray Liotta) is impressed that Kuklinski shows no fear with a gun in his face, and so the guy gets hired to rack up the bodies. At the same time, Kuklinski has a wife (Winona Ryder) and two daughters, all of whom have no clue what daddy does for a living until he's finally brought to justice.

The main issue at play with The Iceman is that it's trying to draw out a character study for a rather impenetrable person. It's hard to get a solid read on the character of Richard Kuklinski. The compartmentalizing of these two very distinct lives is a fascinating psychology to explore, one I wish the filmmakers had spent a majority of the screen time upon. The internal justifications, struggles and compromises would make for an excellent and insightful look into the psychology of killer rationalization. However, I don't know if this movie would even be possible from this subject. Kuklinski is by all accounts a pretty detached guy. There just doesn't seem like there's a lot to him. His circumstances are interesting, beaten into an emotionless cipher by his father, brother to a fellow sociopath, and trying to make a reasonable life for himself while keeping his inner urges at bay. The sociopath-tries-to-make-good storyline is reminiscent to fans of TV's Dexter, and there's plenty of room to work there. It's an intriguing contradiction, the man who cares for so little protecting his family. In the end, we don't really get a sense of why beyond the illusion of the American Family that Kuklinski wants to hold onto, to make himself seem normal, to prove to his family he could break free from their influence. Even typing this I feel like I'm giving the film more depth than it actually illustrates. Even though he tries to play the part of devoted family man, we rarely see any evidence of devotion. He provides, yes, puts his kids in private school, but he puts his family at risk and doesn't seem to have affection for them as much as propriety. They are his things and nobody will mess with them. Your guess is as good as mine if he genuinely loves any of them.

Too much of the film gets mired in standard mob clichés. This guy upsets that guy; this guy wants the other guy dead. It all becomes the focal point of the movie, Kuklinski getting caught up in, essentially, office politics. Even the true-life details of the grisly methods of death feel like wasted potential for a better story. He goes on a job, he botches a job, he gets let go, so to speak, he strikes up a new partnership with another contract killer, Mr. Freezy (Chris Evans in a bad wig). That last part could have been a movie unto itself, watching an odd couple of hitmen plan, execute, and then dispose of their targets. The Iceman nickname comes from their process, freezing the dismembered corpses for months so that coroners cannot get a read on when the bodies were slain. While Evans is entertaining, this entire portion of the movie could have been eliminated, its bearing on the plot minimal. Likewise, the movie has several small roles populated by recognizable actors, which become a series of one-scene distractions. Kuklinski goes out on a hit and it's... James Franco. Then there's Friends actor David Schwimmer as a sleazy, ponytailed, nebbish mob screw-up. Stephen Dorff has one moment as Kuklinski's angry, desperate, murderous brother in prison. The actors are all fine, with the exception of Franco, but many of them are just another reminder of the film's disjointed attention.

I mentioned in Pain and Gain the notion of portraying true-life criminals as sympathetic figures, and the queasy nature of this complicit interpretation. The Iceman never really tries to make Kuklinski sympathetic or some form of an antihero, and I think the movie is better for it. One of the earliest moments in the film is Kuklinski slitting the throat of a guy who harassed him, and defamed his lady. This is BEFORE the guy is even hired as a contract killer too. He endangers his family in violent rages, let alone his professional entanglements. It seems like when the guy can't murder he becomes a worse family man. Even in the end, he's testing a new batch of cyanide on the neighborhood cat. The movie presents Kuklinski as he is, though you'll be forgiven for feeling some initial pings of sympathy when you seem him try and protect his family. Granted his family could also very well use protection from him.

Shannon's (Premium Rush) performance is what keeps you watching. There are few actors who are as intense as this guy, though I'm used to seeing him play unhinged psychos bouncing off the walls. Kuklinski is just as troubled as his other roles but he's all reserve, steely nerves, and anger that eventually bubbles over into violent rage. Shannon is still such a good actor that even with a thin character, or at least thin characterization, he can be completely compelling to watch onscreen. One of the more peculiar, inconsistent elements of the film is Shannon's constantly-changing facial hair. I think I lost count at about nine or ten different facial topiary variations. There were times where it will be different in consecutive scenes. I guess that's a tipoff of a time jump, but his morphing, period-appropriate facial hair also became a point of amusement.

What makes The Iceman so disappointing in retrospect is how much potential it seems to squander. There's a great story to be had with a contract killer by night and a family man by day. That contradiction, the struggle, the psychology is all rich material to work with. It's just that Kuklinski is not necessarily that guy; he's not too deep, at least not in this version, and his killer work problems are just not that compelling. If this is what the filmmakers were going to do with their real-life subject, then they might as well have just used Kuklinski as inspiration. Take the best parts and then compose a different lead character, someone more emotionally transparent or relatable or just plain old interesting. Just because it's a real story doesn't mean you're indebted to telling every true facet of it, especially when a better story is within sight. Shannon is a terrific actor and does his best to make the film worth watching, but from distracted plotting to unmet analysis and emotional exploration, it's hard to walk away from The Iceman and not feel a bit chilly.

Nate's Grade: C+
May 24, 2013
boxman
Nate Zoebl

Super Reviewer

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