$4 Tuesday: The Iceman

Rating: Blerrrrrrgh aka 1.3/4 stars

Notorious real-life contract killer Richard Kuklinski is thought to have killed between 100-250 people. The story is that he got to a point where anyone who annoyed him would get killed and he was abused and tortured animals as a child. A bona-fide sociopath. Such a good premise, right?

So, The Iceman has incredible potential, based on it’s story line (that is true!), to be a great drama. To be the type of drama that digs deep into the mind of the killer in a genuine way and has decent actors who can portray that difficult perspective. This movie had so much potential to be the dark, illegal, gangster version of Mad Men but it failed.

God this movie. Where to start? The music was so over top it felt like it was shouting at me “FEEL THE EMOTIONAL COMPLEXITY OF THIS FILM.” It was so forced and the acting was boring. The dialogue was also boring. The script was just awful. It was written based on how people think gangsters sound rather than how they really sound (not that I know myself, but it sounded THAT forced). The whole movie was a glorification of male violence and traditional masculinity. It was downright annoying to watch. The music grated on my ears and I left with them literally ringing.

Winona Ryder is not a good actress in this. It’s so over the top. The scene in court she looks like she’s about to have a hernia. Her husband is abusive and she’s apologizing left and right to him for ‘provoking him.’

The main character, played by Micheal Shannon, also sucks. Part of the bad acting is the script, but a lot of it is the actors being crappy actors. Can no one make a good movie?! Jesus.

It also tried really hard to be, in fact, a drama. But a drama isn’t told through bullets, gore, and visual montages of various killing methods set to the “FEEL EMOTIONAL COMPLEXITY” music, it’s told through the emotions of the people who experience these events. And while you can argue that the main character does in fact go crazy and irrational in the end in his desperation to save his family [from his own actions no less!!!!!] (which, by the way, he failed at) so the movie does actually have a savior/cold heart-ed killer complex, those relationships weren’t built up enough and there wasn’t a good development of the how the guy became a killer in the first place. He kept doing idiotic things to put his wife and kids in danger (he gets mad at someone who insults his family and starts a car chase down the block and through an alleyway nearly killing his wife and kids who are screaming at him to stop). THEN later at home he refuses to talk to his wife about it, flies into another rage, corners his wife in a chair and is ready to hit her, doesn’t hit her and instead destroys shit in their house. The scene ends with the wife sobbing into his arms saying she’s sorry for having asked.

uuhhhhhh ….. wut ?

She’s sorry? She’s sorry that he nearly killed them and would like an explanation for his behavior?

Or maybe I just missed something.

Either way, miss this movie and just read the Wikipedia entry about the guy. It’ll save you a headache from the movie’s terrible soundtrack.