When Roy’s filial-like minion Josh Rosenthal ( David Schwimmer) angers rival mob families by robbing and taking out drug couriers during an exchange, Roy comes under pressure from their mediator Leo Marks ( Robert Davi).
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Here and elsewhere, the work of editor Danny Rafic is hypnotic in weaving together the separate strands of Richie’s personal and professional life, underscoring the radical contrast between them. After testing his loyalty by having him dispatch a homeless guy, Roy hires Richie to watch his back, collect debts and “send messages.” As Richie and Deborah’s family grows with the birth of two daughters in the Jersey suburbs, his emotionless efficiency carrying out kills is expertly chronicled. Before long he gets on the personal payroll of steely unaffiliated gangster Roy Demeo ( Ray Liotta), who admires his ability to keep cool while staring down the barrel of a gun. Richie convinces Deborah that he works dubbing Disney films, but he actually bootlegs porn videos. A barroom interlude follows in which a pool player aggravates Richie, who calmly slits his throat in the back alley afterward, suggesting this is far from the first time he has killed. She coaxes Richie through his conversational reticence to declare shyly, “You’re a prettier version of Natalie Wood.” The sweetness of that scene invests us instantly in the film’s central relationship.
The duality of Polish-American Richie’s existence is illustrated right off the bat during his first date, in Jersey City in 1964, with his future wife, virtuous Catholic girl Deborah Pellicotti ( Winona Ryder).
PHOTO: ‘Iceman’ Poster Stars Michael Shannon as Menacing Killer That source is reflected in a framing device in which the aged, bearded Kuklinski responds to questions in prison, with Shannon looking like a fine-grained Rembrandt drawing in the half-light. The screenplay, by Morgan Land and Vromen, was based on a fictionalized book by Anthony Bruno and on James Thebaut’s 1992 HBO documentary, The Iceman Tapes: Conversations With a Killer. One of its most bracing characteristics, established from the outset, is the fluid juxtaposition of tenderness and violence. In tone, The Iceman perhaps most closely resembles the early work of James Gray in its neo-noir edginess and contagious fascination with the dourest and most dangerous of milieus. There’s considerable overlap here with crime sagas from Goodfellas to The Sopranos, and though his film is certainly not quite up there with the classics of Martin Scorsese or Francis Ford Coppola, Vromen paints from his own palette.
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