Underrated Crime Thriller Tells True Tale Of Mob Hitman

I initially caught this film shortly after it was released on Netflix, sometime around 2014 or 2015. I had previously heard of Richard Kuklinski and knew that he was referred to as ‘The Iceman’ because he had placed one of his victims in a freezer to try to obfuscate their time of death, though I knew very little else about the convicted killer. The film drew me in with brief previews of Michael Shannon‘s excellent leading performance, and before I knew it, I was callously chomping popcorn in between brutal on-screen slayings.

The narrative of The Iceman follows Kuklinski as he marries his wife, raises his daughters, and generally presents himself as a loving family man. Just under the surface, however, Kuklinski is said to have a dark side with a violent temper, which he attributes to having suffered abuse from his father throughout his entire childhood. In the opening scene of the film, he brutally slashes a man’s throat outside a bar just because the man insulted Kuklinski’s fiancee.

As The Iceman continues, we see the eponymous killer ameliorating his income by running a sales ring for pornographic movies, and leading a gang of petty street burglars, all while performing mob hits for infamous New York City crime lord Roy DeMeo.

As he navigates the criminal underworld, Kuklinski begins to make enemies in the Gambino crime family, in law enforcement, and even amongst his fellow hitmen, making him increasingly paranoid and more prone to explode into outbursts of violence. Somehow, he is able to maintain his innocent Suburban facade all the way through to 1986, when his reign comes to an abrupt end.

Not to spoil the movie, which delivers an absolutely fantastic climax in the final few scenes, but the real-life Richard Kuklinski was apprehended by a police sting operation in 1986. Once incarcerated, Kuklinski claimed credit for more than 100 cold-blooded murders, resulting in the iceman receiving four consecutive life sentences in prison.

As the final credits roll on the last leg of The Iceman movie, a few screen titles reveal that Kuklinski died under mysterious circumstances in 2006, just days before he was expected to testify against a high-ranking Gambino mob family associate.

Unlike most real-life mobsters, Kuklinski didn’t honor the code of silence once he was placed in prison. In fact, most experts tend to agree that the Iceman took credit for numerous slayings that he didn’t actually commit, either for some kind of twisted glory, or to let his fellow hitmen off the hook. For instance, Kuklinski claimed to have killed Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa, though investigators far and wide have dismissed his story as a hoax.

REVIEW SCORE

Still, the tale of Richard Kuklinski is endlessly fascinating, and the work put in to develop his story into The Iceman truly shines through in the final product. The film was revered by critics for its writing, pacing, and performances, especially those from Michael Shannon, Chris Evans, James Franco, Winona Ryder, Ray Liotta, and The Sopranos‘ John Ventimiglia.

If you’re interested in checking out The Iceman for yourself, the film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.