REVIEW: The Iceman

TRUE LIES

As Richard Kuklinski, Michael Shannon's cold blue eyes don't betray any emotion. Not even when a threatening gun is pointed at his nose by Mafia boss Roy DeMeo (Ray Liotta). It earns him the sobriquet 'Iceman', and a reputation as ruthless contract killer whose victim count over a period of about three decades ranges between 100-300 according to different estimates. Incredibly enough The Iceman is based on a true story and therein lies the rub. For a film about a maniacal murderer there’s a deliberate effort to romanticise him, as the film’s tagline advertises and the screenplay faithfully bears out––‘Loving Husband. Devoted Father. Ruthless Killer.’

The narrative expends considerable energy on showcasing him with his beloved wife Deborah (Winona Ryder) and their two daughters in scenes of domestic harmony, although given our knowledge of his heinous crimes, the threat of violence and implosion is always simmering under the surface. On the other hand, the real-life account of his ex-wife Barbara reveals gory details of their marriage, including physical violence and bouts of terrifying rage. A couple of nerve-wracking sequences delineate this temperamental behaviour––the manner in which he suddenly goes from being soft-spoken to breaking the furniture is telling. But the true extent of his family’s trauma isn’t revealed (that he was married before he met Barbara and had children from that relationship too is completely cut out) and the focus is on a schizophrenic personality that houses both family man and killing machine.

Secondly, there’s only a cursory attempt to analyse the roots of his maniacal personality with an allusion to childhood abuse––the real Kuklinski was apparently tortured and humiliated by both his parents (“my mother would beat me up with a broomstick,” he recalls in an extensive television interview with a psychiatrist inside the maximum security prison where he spent three decades years before his death in 2006, the wry casualness of his responses not unlike the remorselessness of his screen persona). His brief interaction with his brother Joey serving a life term in prison offers an insight into the Kuklinski lineage as the latter tells Richard he’s no better than him and the façade of domesticity won’t last.

Still Ariel Vromen’s film is gripping largely on account of Shannon’s enigmatic portrayal with just the right mix of tension and steely nerves, and a couple of sock-in-the-jaw scenes including one featuring a cameo by James Franco as a victim whom the assassin generously grants an agonising half hour to pray to God for his life and Franco effectively projects the terror of a young man staring death in the face.

Pity then that the filmmaker chose to sacrifice truth for gratification, a malady that plagues biopics with alarming regularity.