Lying about his day job in a clandestine pornography production unit run by the mafia, Kuklinski stands up to the collectors who come knocking, and ends up as a gun for hire for Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta). They’re both Catholic and coy, and it’s not long before wedding bells are ringing. It’s New Jersey, 1964 and Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon) is meeting Deborah (Winona Ryder) for a first date. And starring a curious mix of A-list cameos and a seething central performance from actors’ actor Michael Shannon, The Iceman is an ice-cold gangster movie reaching for the stars. But based on Anthony Bruno’s novel The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer, Vromen’s flashback narrative is triggered by a prison interview and the knotty question over whether the jailed mobster has any lingering regrets.

Sentenced to two consecutive life sentences in 1988, Kuklinski died in prison under suspicious circumstances in 2006, the day before he was due to give evidence against the Gambino mafia family.

Pushing the cold killer and family guy to breaking point, Ariel Vromen’s The Iceman features a stellar performance from Michael Shannon and a cluster of stars.īased on the real-life crimes of Richard Kuklinski, Ariel Vromen’s The Iceman tells the story of the mafia contract killer and compromised family man who, with a police-baffling mixture of guns, poison, knives, explosives and a miscellany of blunt instruments, killed over 100 men in and around New York.

Comedy bit about the iceman killer