just seen the trailer, and having read the book and watched the documentaries, this to me just seems like another excuse for hollywood to make some *beep* film.
i was hoping for a brutal drama that is true to the story, but seeing the trailer couldn't familiarise with much of what was being shown.
am i alone here or does this trailer just look awful???
Feel exactly the same, will give it a chance but am prepared to be highly disappointed! How are Marty & Robert Pronge classed as the MAIN characters??
shareUnfortunately it is a huge disappointment. It's so poorly developed, I should think anyone who has a rudimentary knowledge of Richard Kuklinski's life could have constructed a better script.
Philip Carlo's biography 'The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer' is worth a read. It's repetitive and some of the claims are dubious but it's very engrossing.
http://www.hawkensian.com/
You do know the vast majority of that book has been debunked, most of the iceman's claims are a lie. His tie to the mob was extremely tenuous at best.
shareYeah I'm aware that his recollections are dubious, particularly his claims to high-profile hits. Also, the sheer scale of his killings both professionally and privately seem rather far-fetched.
Carlo seemed to admire Kuklisnki and his bloody history, the last chapter is quite shameful in how fawning it is - 'Rest in peace Richard Leonard Kuklinski'. Who knows if Carlo genuinely believed all of his big claims, he could probably just smell the money from all the book sales.
Nevertheless it's a good read and far superior than the film.
http://www.hawkensian.com/
It's one of the worst movies I've seen in years. I'm going to watch the original HBO interviews later tonight. I can't believe the script was this bad. The actors must have cringed delivering these abortions for lines.
shareagreed the movie was terrible...actors did a good job with what they were given but I feel they tried to embrace this idea that he was a balanced good family man and cold blooded murderer a bit too much when really it wasn't the case at all (he regularly physically/mentally abused his wife and verbally abused his children as well as his wife)...then again another issue is a lot of what Richard says comes off sounding like him exaggerating a bit to toot his own horn so to speak...making a movie about his life was about as smart as making one about Frank Lucas (American Gangster) who also exaggerated quite a bit...most of American Gangster is BS and so is this movie lol
shareI don't know much about the real story but I think they captured the essence of a (real) psychopath perfectly. Emotionless (but showing emotions through copying others to "blend in"), harming animals at a young age, rage fits, not caring about human (or animal) life, lack of empathy etc. If anything it's like they built the character from a psychology book on psychopathic behaviour!
I think this is something the film nailed completely. The actual amount of truly psychopathic people is very small (even amongst killers!). The "macho" male image is almost a copy of a psychopath, living on a rough estate, being a gang member or being in prison (etc) males will portray themselves as psychopaths (ready to fight, ready to cause harm, ready to kill, being emotionless), it's a survival technique (if you show weakness people will exploit it).
Of course, most people aren't psychopathic! Its a sort of emotional(less) wall they surround themselves in, many will believe it themselves (i.e. they will think they are psychopathic, they might have other mental health problems but only a tiny percent of people with mental health problem are properly psychopathic, they may be psychotic, but that's not the same!), they project that onto themselves as well as to the rest of the world, it's only when they meet a true psychopath they realise the "tough guy" image isn't going to wash, they are in deep ****, and things are about to turn ugly real quickly. You kind of got that from the acting in this film, I thought they captured it perfectly, like the mafia guys (more than one) looked into his eyes and saw the guy was a true psychopath and they got spooked. Even him getting the job of being a contract killer came about because of that, at the cinema he had the look, so they tested him again by sticking a gun in his face, not so much as a flinch.
I knew it was a true story going in, I just didn't know anything about the real person. Maybe if I did I'd find more faults, but I think it was a fairly well acted film, and remained tense even though you knew what the end would be from the second it started.
this film captured nothing...the film is based on Richard kuklinski and they just made another B made mafia movie when Richard was anything but a normal mafia hitman..he was a homicidal maniac who was NOT a good family man..he brutalized his wife and terrorized his children...
the biggest problem is the Kuklinski story could of been turned into one of the most interesting and brutal films we have seen in a long time..instead what we got is another generic mafia movie...fair would be an understatement...
maybe knowing little to nothing about Richard kuklinski would be an advantage when seeing this film...after reading his story by Phillip Carlo or disecting his three HBO specials this man and his story are extra ordinary but i would have to say this film is much less than ordinary..bland and mediocre...
Denzel Washington is not an actor,period.American Gangster is awful,but this Iceman film is worse and Ray Liotta mailed in his poor performance.
James Franco is a lousy actor,worse than Washington.
It is really notably bad, but it's not very good either. It is just as straight-forward and bland as could be; it does not really offer any insight or motivation beyond the surface level stuff. It is a bit less interesting and illuminating that just reading Richard Kuklinski's Wikipedia article.
shareI had very high expectations for this movie but was somewhat letdown so I went online to read about Kuklinski. I'm kind of pissed that they glossed over the beatings and broken noses that the wife received and the loss of a baby. There are several sources that he had 3 children (a boy also) - where was this, because I only saw 2 girls, did I miss it in the movie?
Kuklinski's older brother was supposedly beaten to death by his father and reported as a fall down the steps - where was this important information?
Some of the murders were different from the information I read - Mr. Softee (Prongay) was shot and left in a car in front of his garage; in the movie he is shot and left on the park bench.
Davis Schwimmer - ugh. Having Ross in the movie was distracting because he acted just like Ross.
agreed @scoup...terrible execution the only highlight for me was Shannon's acting...he really did his absolute best with the crap that was given to him...him and the rest of these actors deserved better...script was terrible too lol whatever script there was I mean
shareKind of hard to ruin the story of a compulsive liar. Kuklinski claimed to have man eating rats, access to bottomless pits, according to him he killed everyone from Paul Castellano to Jimmy Hoffa.
The movie did a good job showing the proven* things that Kuklinski did..with the exception of the Chicago cyanide case, but to be fair it showed the cyanide followed by his arrest. Kuklinski was a big liar and most of the big hits he did were lies and proven to be someone else.
That being said, it was an average Mob flick. There are much better stories out there to be told with much more historical accuracy.
Not very memorable, but well acted with good characters that shows more of the proven Kuklinski's stories leaving out the B.S. he put in his book. He also claimed to have killed Demeo which never happened so 6.5/10 and a quick LOL at the people who say it the worst movie they ever seen,lulz
People who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
Thank you for this..You said it perfect when you say its hard to ruin something that was based on lots of lies. Yea he claimed to kill Hoffa and, Carmine Galante but imo Hoffas bodyguard Frank Sheeran(think thats his name) killed him. A good read on Hoff is called "I heard You Paint Houses". No doubt Richard was a killer and brutal but lots of the stuff he made up to gain more notoriety imo. I have not seen this but i will be watching soon. I read the book twice and saw the interviews more than once. He was a scary scary man.
shareLOL.. he never claimed to have killed Hoffa. His exact words were "I heard he was stuffed in the trunk of a jap car, crushed and shipped over seas... thats what I heard".
Anyway... this movie was good and the acting good - but totally off from the real story. The only thing true about the film is a few of the names. They mixed and matched who got killed, by what methods, where and when. And where was his son? LOL.. they didnt even include that. WTF is wrong with Hollywood... the true story would have made for a much more interesting film. Lame.
"The true story would have made for a much more interesting film. Lame."
Maybe it would, if only anyone knew what the actual true story is. I don't even think Richard Kuklinski knew after all the lies he had told. Not a single thing he said could be trusted.
Spot on about David Schwimmer. This guy can act only one character, I guess.
shareI have seen better "skits" done by pre-school children.
shareI thought it was a complete mess, the script was horribly underdeveloped and disorganised. Shannon was decent but he couldn't save it. It had none of the brutality or the insight of the book, which admittedly had some rather dubious recollections in it but was a good read nonetheless.
Was it Philip Carlo's book that you read?
www.imdb.com/media/rm3200101376/nm0001254
http://www.hawkensian.com/
Yea it was Carlo
shareI just watched it. They really toned him down, especially being a family man as he beat his wife a lot and once told his oldest daughter if he ever killed their mom in a fit of rage he would have to kill them too...He was a brutal man and sure had what it took to be a contract killer...
shareYeah, it`s kind of bizarre and perverse that they over in Hollywood that a psychopathic mass murderer like Kuklinski needs to be toned down for a movie and force some bullsh-t, half-assed "other side" onto him. Would it really have affected the commercial viability in any notable way if they`d left all this "I feel sorry for my family"... nonsense out of it? That and the pronounced reluctance to off women and underage personages...
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan