The documentaries are so much better than the film, The Iceman. Don’t blame the actors. Around the 90 minute mark, Michael Shannon becomes Richard Kuklinski in a diner scene with an undercover cop. The Iceman has a sense of humor. Chris Evans, who plays a fellow hit man, says, “You shoot the captain, the ship goes down.” The Iceman’s main flaw: going for cheap sentimental/sensational narrative changes and choosing to commit to the mafia movie genre instead of remaining faithful to the titular character and the true story, which was good enough. It was as if the filmmakers watched the first two of three HBO documentaries, jazzed up the stories that they thought needed a little pep and some cheesy tropes and said, “Now THAT is a story.” A must see for those interested in the subject matter, but otherwise, stick to the HBO documentaries. SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
Seriously, any and all revisions to this criminal’s story are not necessary. Here are some examples. The Iceman’s first audition for the mafia was killing a guy walking his dog-the guy happened to be a cop, but he didn’t know that. In the movie, they changed it into a homeless guy. Also the movie’s Iceman was more brutal in his method of killing and needed more help to get to a target whereas the real life version had more finesse and preferred to work alone. When he was arrested, he wasn’t with his wife. He didn’t leave the car. He resisted, but was self-possessed. The fictional Iceman took a lot more crap than the real life man would have, and when he didn’t and snapped, the reaction was a bit over the top whereas the real life Iceman was a bit of a stalker and could wait for revenge. The Iceman’s filmmakers say they get it, but show that they don’t get that what makes him really scary is that he can do brutal things, but very calmly and in an unpredictable fashion.