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The Iceman | 2013 | R | - 7.8.10

Based on the true story of Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon), a notorious contract killer who lived a double life as a ruthless killer and family man, and so successfully hid his crime life from his family that they were stunned when he was arrested in 1986; he was believed to have masterminded over 100 murders. Also with Winona Ryder, Chris Evans, Ray Liotta, David Schwimmer, Danny A. Abeckaser, James Franco and Ryan O'Nan. Directed by Ariel Vromen. [1:55]

SEX/NUDITY 7 - A husband and his wife kiss passionately, the man is shirtless and his bare chest and back are visible as he thrusts above the woman and he grabs the woman's bare breast (it is seen coming out of a low-cut nightgown); they moan sexually until they are interrupted by a knock on the door and they separate when their pre-teen daughters enter the room after the man pulls on a shirt and underwear (no nudity is visible); after the girls leave the man and the woman kiss passionately again.
 We see several men in a pornographic movie theater and we hear the sexual moaning of a man and a woman on screen as they have sex and the movie goes in and out of focus while the man thrusts on top of the woman (a portion of the woman's bare breast is visible); the man places the woman's breast in his mouth, and an older man approaches a man in the theater and makes a crude sexual remark about how the man can return to pleasure himself. We see a clip of a pornographic movie while a man works in a film lab; we see a woman's bare breast pressed against a man on top of her and the man appears to be thrusting.
 A young man is seen filming a teen girl as she undresses and he kisses her passionately; we see her unbuttoning her shirt and running her hands over her underwear until they are interrupted by a knock on the door; we later see the side of the teen girl's bare breast as a man shouts at her to get dressed.
 A man wraps his arms around a woman, the woman kisses a cut on his hand, she rests her head on his chest and he kisses her head. A woman kisses a man on the cheek.
 A man tells another man that the man's girlfriend does not have sex until she is married and the man jokes that he could change her mind. A man makes a crude remark about the man having to self-pleasure himself because his girlfriend will not have sex. A man tells another man that they dub pornographic movies. At a dinner with a group of men and women, a woman brings up how two men (her husband included) would dub pornographic movies; the woman makes a remark about there being "nothing wrong with porn" and one of the men quickly changes the subject.
 We see a shirtless man in the shower and his bare back and chest are visible.

VIOLENCE/GORE 8 - We see a montage of scenes of two men working in a cold locker, stacking dead bodies and disembodying bodies, including the following: A man butchers a dead man hanging upside down (the man is fully clothed) with a chainsaw and we hear the sound of the chainsaw hitting the flesh and see a fine spray of blood; a man butchers a dead body and throws chunks into a tub in front of another man; a man is seen wrapping plastic around the dead body of another man with a large bloody wound on his neck; a man grabs a dead man wrapped in plastic and places it on a cart along with what appear to be disembodied human thighs.
 A man approaches another man in a dark parking garage, he holds a knife to the man's throat, the man begs for his life and we see the attacker stab a long knife through the man's neck and then slit his throat and dump his body into an open car trunk; the attacker walks away (no blood is visible). A man reaches his hand through the driver's side window of a car, grabs the throat of the driver and slits it with a knife (we see blood spurt from the wound); the man slumps over and the attacker walks away.
 A man shoots two other men multiple times and we see blood spray hit the wall behind the men as they slump over dead; the gunman shoots both of the men again in the chest and we see two large bloody gunshot wounds on one of the men's chest as the gunman walks away.
 A man knocks on a door, grabs the young man who answers and shoves him inside; the man pulls out a gun and threatens the young man, the young man begs for his life and begins to cry and the man instructs the young man to pray for his life, saying that God could come rescue him; the gunman shoots the young man twice in the chest and we see the two bloody gunshot wounds (the man later experiences a flashback and we see him shooting the young man in the chest two times as well as the bloody gunshot wounds); the gunman finds a teen girl in a closet as he is leaving and he shouts at her to leave.
 A man tells another man, after handing him a newspaper featuring a story about a murder the man had committed, that to solve their problems they will have to kill one another's families; the first man is upset by the proposition and he shouts at the man and then shoots him three times in the stomach (no blood is visible) and quickly leaves the man's body on a park bench as he drives away.
 A man gets out of a car, sits next to a homeless man, shoots him in the stomach three times and then gets back into the car (no blood is visible); another man inside the car hands the gunman a stack of cash.
 A man holds another man at gunpoint, the man begs for his life (the two men are close friends), and the man shoots him in the shoulder as an older man and a fourth man watch; the older man is visibly angry, grabs a gun from his pocket and shoots the man twice (the man is on the ground and we do not see him being struck by the two bullets); the fourth man tries to grab and tackle the older gunman, and the older man shoves him away and threatens him (no blood visible).
 A man "coughs" in another man's face, spraying him with a cyanide mixture causing the man to fall to the ground and clutch his chest and throat; it is implied that the man dies moments later as the attacker walks away.
 We see a quick montage of a man choking another man to death with a clothesline; we then see a man holding a gun to another man's face and pulling the trigger (blood splatter hits the wall behind the man's head).
 We see an older man and a man inside a car and the man reaches for a gun to shoot the older man until the older man threatens him; the man grabs a gun and cocks it, the older man threatens the man a second time and the man fires twice.
 A man pistol-whips another man, the man is knocked to the ground from the force, and then stands up; the attacker holds the gun to the man's head, but drops it at another man's direction, who approaches and then slaps the man.
 A man has a flashback to himself as a young boy, being beaten by his father; we see another young boy watch as the man strikes the boy repeatedly with what appears to be a metal chair frame.
 Two men escort another man into the back of a car, where another man puts a gun in the man's face and threatens him and his family; the man is upset and even more upset as one of his daughters approaches the car, when the gunman drops the gun but threatens to kill the man's family. A man points a gun in another man's face (the man in the backseat of a car and the gunman is in the front) and unwaveringly tells him that he needs to kill a homeless man and hands him the gun. A man asks an older man if the older man thinks the man should kill another man (the man's close friend) and the older man implies that he should kill the other man; the two men shout angrily at one another until the older man leaves.
 A man shouts at another man to get into an ice cream truck as we see the building where the two men had been erupt in an explosion (it is implied that one of the men set the explosives); the two men then drive down the street rapidly and the driver makes a remark that he must kill a teen girl who had seen his face; the ice cream truck races after the girl, until the passenger of the truck pulls a gun and fires it into the window of the driver's side, causing the driver to stop chasing the teen girl.
 A man driving a car hits another man's car and the driver of the struck car gets out and shouts at the other man; the man's wife and two teenage daughters in the car become upset as the man shouts at them and the driver of the family car shouts at the other man until the other driver uses an obscene hand gesture and gets into his car and peels away; the driver of the family car follows him through traffic, swerving and narrowly avoiding getting into a series of accidents, and his family is visibly fearful and screaming as they come to a sudden stop, narrowly missing slamming into a taxi as the other car zooms away.
 A man is seen inside a prison cell and another man is on the outside as they have a heated conversation, which ends when the two men shout and pound the thick glass between them; the man on the outside storms away as the other screams and beats on the glass (we see him restrained by two police officers). A man slams open a door into another man's legs. A man angrily beats his head and fists against a wall.
 Many police cars surround a man's car and one officer has a rifle pointed at the car (we see a man in the driver's seat and a woman in the passenger seat) and many other officers surround the car with guns drawn; one officer breaks the man's window and others grab the man and try to pull him out of the car as the woman (the man's wife) screams and cries; four officers bring the man down and hold him against the ground as they forcibly handcuff him as he shouts and struggles.
 A man screams, flips over a table angrily and storms through a room, breaking glasses, dishes, and picking up objects and slamming them into the ground; he holds his head over a sink where a woman (his wife) approaches him and calms him down, holding his face and they hug.
 We see the frozen, plastic-shrouded body of a teen girl inside a deep freeze as a man explains that he had killed her by force feeding her a puffer fish, then explains that he will dump the girl's body and set it on fire in another city where a man was murdering teen girls and "torching their bodies." A man feeds a cat a small amount of tuna that he believes is laced with cyanide and we see the cat walking around unharmed; the man is shaken and says, "Something isn't right."
 A teen girl tells her father over the phone that her sister was hurt in a hit and run car accident; the man is visibly upset and we see the girl in the hospital with her leg in a cast and propped up along with cuts covering her arm; the girl's mother lashes out at the man as he implies that his actions had caused the girl to be in the accident (we later hear that the teen girl is recovering from her injuries). A man jokes with his brother that he made his brother more upset by shooting a dog than shooting a girl and the man shouts back that he had shot a 12-year-old girl; the man also asks his brother if he is going to tell his family about a series of "terrible things" he had done as a child, then lists the man having tied living dogs to a train and "caving in" another boy's head with a shower pole. A man tells another man that their mutual friend had been found dead in a trash bag under a bridge; the man then explains that the killer had frozen the man's body, thus making it impossible to determine when the man was killed (the man speaking does not realize the man he is talking to is the killer). Throughout the movie we hear men discussing taking out "hits" on other men, discussing how different people need to be killed and two men frequently discuss how they will kill people. A man explains to another man how someone is killed with cyanide. We hear a man explaining to another man that cyanide can be put in a spray and sprayed on another man causing cardiac arrest.
 A man refers to another man allowing a teen girl to escape and the man defends himself, saying he "does not kill women and children." A woman tells her husband that he had put his entire family in danger when he tried to follow a car and he tells her that he had felt that he needed to defend her after the other man insulted her. A man jokingly tells a woman that he got a tattoo to "look tough." We see text as the movie ends, saying that a man was convicted and sentenced to two life terms in prison and is believed to have killed at least 100 people during his life; it continues to explain that the man was killed while in prison, before he was to testify against a known mob agent, and his death was dubbed "suspicious." As a man approaches another man in an ice cream truck, the man in the truck remarks that it is either his "lucky day or his last."
 Two pre-teen girls are upset as they watch television footage of helicopters unloading soldiers; one of the girls tells her parents that her teacher had said that soldiers dying in war was "God's will" and the woman partially agrees, then instructs the two girls to change the subject and go to bed.

LANGUAGE 10 - About 114 F-words and its derivatives, 1 obscene hand gesture, 5 sexual references, 19 scatological terms (1 mild), 6 anatomical terms (1 mild), 5 mild obscenities, name-calling (lousy conversationalist, stupid, jerk, spoiled brat, bum, thick headed, nuts, paranoid, slime, degenerate), 2 religious profanities, 7 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A man throws a large brick of cocaine on a table, cuts it with a knife, then licks the knife and instructs another man to try it and the man rubs cocaine on his teeth, and we hear men discussing how a man had stolen $500,000 worth of cocaine. We see men and women drinking beer and wine at dinner and in bars, a man and an older man drink liquor, and we see men and women stumble drunkenly from a bar. Throughout the movie we see men and women smoking cigarettes.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Murder for hire, regret, revenge, mob lifestyle, loyalty, lack of emotions, sociopaths, pornography, family life.

MESSAGE - You cannot hide everything from your family for too long.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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