The Iceman

Directed by Ariel Vromen

(R)

**

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No matter how much screen time Michael Shannon gets, he “feels like a performer whose depths we’ve barely begun to plumb,” said Dana Stevens in Slate.com. Cast here as a real-life New Jersey hit man who remained a devoted family man even as he racked up at least 100 murders, the star of Take Shelter and Revolutionary Road turns the late Richard Kuklinski into a character so “scarily intense” that he’s hard to look away from. The script, unfortunately, “never gets underneath Kuklinski’s skin,” said Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. Flashbacks show the future sociopath being beaten by his alcoholic father, but he remains too inscrutable to care about. “If you have a fairly high tolerance for graphic violence,” you might find yourself enjoying this film’s many fine performances—including Winona Ryder as Kuklinski’s wife, Ray Liotta as his mob boss, and Chris Evans as a fellow killer who freezes victims’ bodies in an ice-cream truck, said Lou Lumenick inthe New York Post. But The Iceman remains “a real disappointment”—a “chilly and monotonous” tour of a despicable career.