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Ariel Vromen (Israel, 1973) launched his career in Britain but soon moved to the USA.
He directed Rx/ Simple Lies (2005) and
Danika (2006) before the gangster movie
The Iceman (2012), the biopic of a real-life hitman who killed more than 100 people.
The story unfolds in diligent traditional storytelling style but with minimum suspense and a bit of horror truculence.
(It's a mystery why they chose Michael Shannon and Ray Liotta, two actors who look like twins, which makes it confusing at the beginning).
In 1964 Richard is a shy man who just got a date with the virgin Deborah.
Later he wins at pool but the loser refuses to pay and insults him.
Richard coldly tells him to pay and to get out, then follows him to the car and
coldly kills him.
Richard has a humble job dubbing pornographic films, but he told Deborah that
he dubs Disney cartoons.
The film then fast forwards to Richard and Deborah married with a baby.
The porno lab is owned by mobster Roy. One day Roy decides to shut down the
business but he is intrigued by Richard's absolutely cool temper. Roy gives him
a gun and tells him to kill a bum for a few dollars: Richard coldly executes.
To support his family, Richard starts working as a hitman for Roy while telling
his wife that he has become a financial wizard.
Another flash forward shows them living in a nice mansion with two teenage
daughters.
Roy kills nonstop, efficient and remorseless. One day Roy orders him to kill
an associate. Richard kills him but then discovers a teenage prostitute hiding
in a closet. He should kill her but instead let her go. Outside there's another
hitman,
Freezy,
sent by Roy to make sure the job was done properly, and Freezy, who drives an
ice cream truck, starts
driving after the girl to kill her because she's a dangerous witness.
Roy stops him at gunpoint: he has no morals other than "no women, no children".
At home he is an impeccable husband and father.
However, Freezy tells Roy and Roy fires Richard. Richard needs money to support
his family and enters in a partneship with Freezy to kill people for other mobsters.
One day his brother Joe calls from prison. Richard visits him and coldly tells him to never call again. We learn that Joe is serving a life sentence for
raping and murdering a little girl. We also learn why the brothers became
sadistic killers: their father was a maniac who beat them regularly.
Richard and Freezy become known as "The Iceman" because they kill people and then freeze them.
One day one of Roy's men screws up and Roy's boss Leo demands that Roy kills him.
Leo hires Freezy to kill him and Freezy subcontracts the killing to Richard,
who learns how to poison people with cyanide.
Leo also demands the head of Roy's adopted son Josh. Roy has no choice but to kill him in front of Leo.
Richard's best friend Terry knows that Richard is an associate of Roy and talks
too much about it.
Roy hears the story and shows up at Richard's house while Richard is throwing a birthday party for his older daughter. The family witnesses how gangsters escort Richard to a car where Roy threatens to kill his family.
Richard has no choice but to kill his best friend Terry.
Roy can't work anymore and starts losing his temper with his wife.
It takes three months for Leo to pay Richard for the cyanice killing, and Leo is only willing to pay a fraction of what they agreed upon. Richard does not hesitate to kill even Leo. At the same time someone tries to kill his daughter, who ends up at the hospital. Now his wife realizes that Richard is involved with criminals and that their lives are in danger.
Richard realizes that Freezy is the one who carried out the hit against his daughter when Freezy accidentally mentions the he knows where he lives. Again, Richard does not hesitate to kill him.
Richard now wants to kill Roy. He asks an old friend to introduce him to a chemist who has access to cyanide. Richard meets this man and this man asks him to carry out a hit for him in return for the cyanide. Richard accepts. The man procures the cyanide, which Richard tries on a straycat. The straycat doesn't die and
Richard realizes that something is wrong, but it is too late: the cops surrender him and arrest him in front of his life. The man was an undercover cop and the meeting was a trap. Richard is sentenced to life in prison in the same prison where his brother Joe is rotting. We hear Richard saying that he only regrets hurting his family, not regretting any of his murders.
The closing intertitles inform us that he was suspected of more than 100 murders and that he died in 2006 in suspected circumstances.
Later he directed
Criminal (2016),
The Angel (2018) and
1992 (2024).
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