The Iceman

Michael Shannon is a force of nature. A force of freaking nature. He's been called this generation's Robert De Niro, but to call him that is frankly to do him a great disservice, and to unnecessarily and tacitly pre-destine him to a late career full of half-assed cash-grabs and relentless mediocrity. That, and he's better now than De Niro was back then. He is usually the best thing about any film he is in, and his performance as contract killer Richard Kuklinski, otherwise known as The Iceman, in director Ariel Vroman's biopic, should go down as one of the greatest in the history of cinema, and I hope he is remembered come award season. His Kuklinski is today's Travis Bickle, every bit as reserved and restrained, and every bit as grandiose and larger than life because of it. Unfortunately though, the film itself does not hold a candle to Taxi Driver, or any of the films that made De Niro a household name among both cinephiles and casual audiences. Hopefully with his turn on Boardwalk Empire, and occasionally popping up in Hollywood genre exercises like Premium Rush, he is becoming more popular among the latter. Sadly, The Iceman will go practically unseen.

Even more sadly, I have a hard time arguing against that point, because I can completely understand why. From the getgo The Iceman introduces Kuklinski as a cipher, and though I hate to state the obvious, ciphers don't usually make for gripping stories, and this most pedestrian criticism is something Vroman's film never manages to rise above.  When we first see Kuklinski it is in the 1960's, and he is on a date with Deborah (Winona Ryder, as we've never previously had a chance to see her), a christian girl from the neighborhood, who will eventually become his wife and mother of his two daughters. He works dubbing films in the porn industry, and tells Deborah he works for Disney. We see him slit the throat of a man who mouths off to him over a game of billiards, and the impression is clear that this is not the first time, but rather just where we happen to pick up his story. A skirmish with the mob who is behind the porn distributor he works for, late one night at the office, leads to his next occupation as a professional hitman, when mob boss Roy Demeo (an always welcome Ray Liotta) notices his vacant, souless stare while getting smacked around, and sees a world of potential. 

What follows is a highlight reel of Kuklinski's most notable moments, including the highly publicized revelation by the real Kuklinski of a time when he allowed a victim thirty minutes to pray to God to come and save his life before being murdered. These moments are woven into an occasionally convoluted tale of mob double crosses, threats and intimidations, and basically everything we've seen done countless times before, and much better. The story of The Iceman is pure direct-to-video material, recalling films like Goodfellas, which shows the intrusion of a gangster's occupation into his home life as perfect as any film ever could, without ever forging its own cinematic identity.  No, that's up to Michael Shannon, who single-handedly delivers for this film every star in this review. 

Shannon's read of Kuklinski is every bit as souless and empty as one would imagine. There are moments though, when he allows something else to crack through the hardened exterior. The film makes a token bid to explain Kuklinski's behavior through flashbacks of abuse at the hand of his father, and perhaps as a narrative justification for his refusal to kill women and children. But Shannon isn't content to let the screenplay deal with that alone, evident in a handful of scenes which are nothing short of a master class in screen acting. Sitting in a car outside his house, while his daughter slowly approaches to see what's going on, Demeo threatens Kuklinski for taking outside work, and suggests that one of his henchmen get out of the car to chase the girl away. Shannon becomes animated in very small ways; a spark of life creeps across his face, and his lower lip begins to quiver uncontrollably while he repeats over and over, "don't let him touch her." Cut to Demeo, and a mixture of terror and incomprehensibilty coming across his face while he tells his goon to stand down. There is no reason for Demeo to stand down; few actors living today could have pulled that turn of events off so believably. The scene is a testament to Shannon's gifts as an actor.

But those gifts are not without their consequences, and for as wonderful as Shannon's performance is, the rest of the film is kind of left twisting in the wind because of it. Films like this usually have some other character, an audience surrogate, to become personally invested in, and through which to raise the emotional stakes. The Iceman has no such character, it is all Kuklinski, pretty much all the time. There is his wife, and Winona Ryder is as close to a revelation here as she's ever been, but her character is too often relegated to willful ignorance to ever really amount to anything. Remember in Goodfellas, when Karen Hill pulled a gun on Henry Hill? The cool reality of the logic of her complicity talked that scene down from the ledge. There is nothing like that here. The only time Deborah steps to Kuklinski is when he begins to grow distant after being fired by Demeo. He flies into a rage that quickly ends with her throwing herself at him and apologizing, not because he's violent or abusive towards her, but just because she is weak.  No fault of her character of course, but it saddles the film with a lack of anyone for the audience to turn to. And because of that, Kuklinski becomes the focus of our sympathy (we can't help it - we seek it out in stories all the time), and serves to undo much of the transformative work Shannon undertakes.

I blame Vroman, who it's pretty clear was out of his league with this film. His last film was the direct-to-video Marisa Tomei vehicle, Danika, made six years ago. Yeah, me either. The Iceman has that same direct-to-video feel, a film that, with a different actor, would have been a complete toss-off, destined for the budget bin. Put someone like John Cusack in this film, and it never would have seen the inside of a theatre. I am happy that Michael Shannon found his way to this role. The Iceman doesn't come anywhere close to eclipsing Revolutionary Road or Take Shelter, the actor's finest moments, and in infinitely better films. In a sense The Iceman suffers from an identity crisis of sorts, as it's too plot-oriented to be a character study, and too focused on Kuklinski, to the deficit of every other character, to be a truly gripping drama. But Michael Shannon makes the film unique in its own right, injecting it with purpose and respectability. 

The Iceman did not change my life, but it reaffirmed my belief that this is Michael Shannon's time, on the verge of becoming the greatest working actor today. When the summer dust settles, and after the film quickly fades from being buried in multiplexes among the summer blockbusters, I hope people will discover The Iceman on home video, or online, and go "hey, it's that guy." Because that guy...deserves everything he has coming to him.

*** 1/2 out of *****