The Iceman is a dreary, dark crime drama based on the life and murders of Richard Kuklinski, a seemingly every day family man that hides his homicidal tendencies from his family. The film showcases great performances from Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder and Chris Evans but never really gets on the actor's levels as a whole film. The sheer velocity of Shannon's performance on screen is amazing, however, his performance carries an otherwise B-rated film. The film, as a whole, works but you can't help but wonder what could have been if the film was in more capable hands. Nonetheless, the film does offer some satisfying mob violence in between some useless scenes between Ray Liotta and David Schwimmer (who is damn near unrecognizable) and some poorly written but well acted family drama scenes between Shannon and Ryder. The real stand-out performance other than our lead is Chris Evans. Evans transforms himself from Hollywood heartthrob to grimy criminal in this film and pulls it off in a way only he can deliver. The film's director Ariel Vorman seems off to the sidelines, letting his actors carry the film without even trying to levitate fantastic source material to something marvelous. Instead, the film does begin to lag towards the end and features scenes where the repetitive nature of Kuklinski's murder habits suddenly loses its entertaining value and even tries to trade it in for some family drama that seems half-cocked and lazy. Overall, the film works as a character study of a violent psychopath. Yes, this is a film that shows nothing new as far as mob films are concerned, but it does showcase some awesome performances that is worth the watch.
Review of The Iceman
