New Jersey is full of strange characters, and Richard Kuklinski was one of them.  By night a mild-mannered film editor, through circumstance and blind luck by day he became a mafia hit man, allegedly dispatching more than one hundred victims over a period of some thirty years.  The Iceman is a chronicle of how Kuklinski (Michael Shannon) became such a monster, hid the truth from his family for so long, and was eventually caught by the authorities.

Ariel Vromen’s film chronicles Kuklinski’s anti-social activities while withholding any moral judgments.  Kuklinski is presented as a hard-working guy with a very naive wife (Winona Ryder), who simply follows the money trail.  When his job is terminated he takes what work he can get, which happens to be as a mob enforcer.  He never shows any emotion about killing partly because of the brutality he suffered at the hands of his parents, and partly because he just doesn’t care.  Supporting his family is paramount, and everything else is negotiable.  It’s a very realistic view not only of Kuklinski’s life but the society in which he operates.

Shannon is, as usual, superb in the role; he doesn’t over-emote at all.  He barely even gets excited until the last act, when Kuklinski begins to turn paranoid.  Ryder seems miscast as his wife, while Ray Liotta and Robert Davi are wonderfully typecast as mob guys.  David Schwimmer has a key role, and I didn’t even recognize Chris Evans as the coldest of killers.

The Iceman is not the final word on Kuklinski; at least two documentaries provide more authentic glimpses into his troubled life and psyche.  But fiction offers another perspective, and Vromen’s film depicts how easy a transition it was for a man with no conscience to succeed as a paid killer, and how easy it was for him to maintain the facade and escape notice for so long.  And while its subject is sensational, Vromen’s film is not lurid or exploitive.  It’s just a good movie.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  2 June 2013.