MovieChat Forums > The Iceman (2013) Discussion > He was not the family man or the good gu...

He was not the family man or the good guy the movie makes him out to be


The movie was entertaining enough, but people should be aware that kuklinksi was not the family man, macho man with a code that the movie portrays him to be.

He was abusive to his wife, physically, and verbally, cutting, suffocating and beating her, as well as being verbally abusive to his daughters.

... according to one of his daughters he once told her that he would have to kill her and her two siblings should he happen to beat her mother to death in a fit of rage.[22] At the same time, his wife Barbara has stated that he never actually did hurt the children.[23] However, she says that he frequently beat her up, breaking her nose several times.[24] According to the New York Times, Richard tried to smother her with a pillow, pointed a gun at her and tried to run her over with a car.


This film tries to portray him as some kind of warrior, living with his own code of survival of the fittest, dog eat dog jungle kind of guy.

Yes he had a bad upbringing, but that doesn't change the fact that he was a bad and evil guy. He obviously had issues and in another universe with a stable childhood upbringing, he might have been a normal average Joe (or maybe not who knows).

But what we do know, is you are who you are, you are who you choose to be. And he chose to be evil. He chose to kill innocent people, hurt innocent people, random people, not just bad people, not just people in the underworld.

This film white washes the truth, and falsifies (idolises) the man as being a hero from a bygone age, with a bygone code of honour. He wasn't that. He knew what he was doing was wrong and evil, and he chose to do it for his reasons, which were not honourable.

This is not 17th century Japan, he was not a Bushido warrior, he was a murdering contract killer, a murderer for hire, and a wife beater.

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True. But his life was dramatized and needed to make him out to be an honorable ronin so as to have a protagonist. We end up rooting for Kuklinski and sympathizing with him.

I would like to have seen a miniseries at the very least on Kuklinski that could be more accurate. But with an hour and forty five minute running time so much got compressed.

Regardless of the accuracy, I thought Shannon gave a good performance.

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did you read the book?

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It really amazes me that people saw this movie and thought he was portrayed as some kind of hero. You guys really need a better moral compass.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco

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The movie portrays him as a much better guy than the book does (and what he really was). I guess you didn't read the original post too closely....

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It's okay OP, one day you will understand what the word 'sociopath' means and what compartmentalizing means.

"Can I please ask you to NOT post on ahs boards?" - yeamf

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The film doesn't remotely depict him as a good guy, much idolize him. I have no idea where you get the impression that it does.


You'd be wrong, though. It's Hambone.

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