The true story of a contract killer. This guy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kuklinski
But how true?
For instance, consider this from a review of the film at IMDb:
The Iceman, Richard Kuklinski, comes off as a sympathetic character in the end, whereas in real life he truly was a cold emotionless and sociopathic killer. His family weren’t so much cherished and loved as they were possessions that were his and his alone.
Sympathetic, maybe. But only with respect to his family.
And that’s the tricky part here. After all, what will fascinate most folks is how he did manage to conceal what he did for a living – beng “contracted” to snuff out the lives of others – from his own family. He really only had to rationalize his behavior to himself. But how long could he realistically hope to keep all of this a secret?
Think about it: How would you react if you found out your own father or husband or brother or son was a professional hitman? Or, in this day and age, I suppose, mother, wife, sister or daughter?
And it is always particularly surreal to me how some of these gangsters manage to reconcile what they do with God. They make sure their wives and kids are brought up in the Church and then still do what they do. The way they can keep these things separate in their head. The human capacity to rationalize!
Yet in a long list of true crime docs this is often revealed to be the case: folks living secret lives. They may not be murderers but they sure as shit are not who you think they are. Or not always. The fragmented personality in a fragmented – “postmodern” – world. You sometimes wonder: How long before it’s the norm?
The bottom line here though seems to be this: read the books: amazon.com/The-Iceman-Story- … 0345540115
and:
amazon.com/The-Ice-Man-Confe … DN2GZ5N4VG
Or watch the HBO doc: youtu.be/_vn7Hz2PK7s
The film just does not [cannot] really make you understand how the past and the present came together to create this man.
IMDb
While in prison, Richard Kuklinski claimed to be responsible along with four other men for the kidnap and murder of former Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa on July 30 1975 in a restaurant parking lot in Detroit. The five-man team were allegedly given the contract on Hoffa by Tony Provenzano, a captain in the Genovese crime family. Kuklinski claimed to have been paid $40,000 for the hit…The claims only surfaced after Kuklinski’s death in March 2006 in a book by author Philip Carlo and will probably never be substantiated.
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iceman_(film
trailer: youtu.be/aciNNjzyS20
THE ICEMAN [2012]
Written in part and directed by Ariel Vromen
[b]Deborah: So, what do you do for a living?
Richard: I dub cartoons for Disney.
…
Roy: What’s your name?
Ritchie: Ritchie Kuklinski.
Roy: You know who I am?
Ritchie: Mm-hm.
Roy: So if I came down here, I must have had a good reason.
Ritchie: I didn’t say you didn’t have a good reason, I said the date was…
[Roy slaps him]
Roy: If you want to complain about life, you’re talking to the wrong fucking guy.
…
Roy [whipping out a gun and aiming it at Ritchie]: Look at that. The fucking guy is cold as ice. Come on, you got to feel something for somebody. Got a girlfriend?
Ritchie: I’m married.
Roy: Then why do you act like you don’t give a shit?
Ritchie: What do you want?
…
Roy: I’m closing the porn lab. Sorry, but you’re out of a job. But if you can follow orders, you got everything to gain.
[he hands the gun to Richie]
Roy: Go put the bum out of his misery. If you don’t have it in you, now’s the time to say it.
…
Roy [to Ritchie]: What you’re going to be doing is you’ll be watching my back. You’ll be collecting debts, sending messages, whatever the messages are. But if I need you, Scicoli or Josh here is going to get in contact with you. And payphones only. Now, you’re going to deal with whatever we can, for whatever reason.
…
Man at dinner: And now look at him. He goes from dubbing cartoons to international banking.
Ritchie: It’s currency exchange.
Woman: Cartoons? Is that what you call porn these days?
Deborah: Porn?
…
Anabel: They’re coming back from Vietnam?
Ritchie: Yeah.
Anabel: Dad? Sister Marjorie says it’s God’s will.
Ritchie: What’s God’s will?
Anabel: The people who died in Vietnam. That doesn’t really make sense to me.
Deborah: Well, you know, honey, there’s just too many people in the world for God to care about everyone. So that’s why we look after each other.
Ritchie: Yeah, your mom’s right. God’s got nothing to do with it.[/b]
How organized crime becomes disorganized:
Leo [from the Gambinos]: Rosenthal steals half a mil in cocaine, then shoots the couriers. You’re being held responsible by the Cubans for his actions.
Roy: How do you figure that? How the fuck am I responsible?
Leo: He goes around throwing your name. Demeo this, Demeo that. Starts a war, so now everyone thinks you’re involved.
Roy: He was just trying to help me out, Leo!
Leo: Help you out? Ha! Then it’s your fault you made him feel sorry for you. You want to be friends with the Gambinos, then be real with me. I understand you got this relationship with Rosenthal. But the couriers he killed and stole from, they were linked to the Callies, Roy. Nothing gets forgotten.
Roy: Leo, you’re asking me to kill Rosenthal?
Leo: Why don’t you stop asking questions you know the answers to?
Roy: I took the kid from the streets! I raised him like he was one of my own.
Leo: Then that’s your problem. Kid goes around telling everybody he’s your son and they hold the father accountable.
Roy: They were fucking coked out delivery boys! Who gives a fuck?!
Leo: Who gives a shit about them. But that’s not the point. You understand? They’ll come after you and him no matter what. Do you fucking understand that in your fucking thick head?
Roy: Fuck me.
Leo: You get what I’m telling you?
Roy: Yeah, I get it.
Leo: Even people you consider friends will come after him. You got that friend, Marty.
Roy: What about Marty?
Leo: He already started spreading the word where to find him. This is one big fucking mess we don’t need, Roy. Clean it up.
Of course it is Ritchie who is assigned that task.
[b]Marty [as Ritchie aims the gun at him]: Hey, what the fuck’s going on?
Ritchie: He changed his mind.
Marty: No, no, no, no. Look, Rosenthal’s my best friend. I would never say anything.
Ritchie: Not my problem.
Marty: Well, do… no! No! Not…Please don’t! God, please! God, please!
Ritchie: What, are you praying?
Marty: God, please! Please!
Ritchie: You really believe that? You think God will come down and save you? All right. I’ll give you some time. Pray to God. Tell him to come down and stop me. Go ahead. Our Father…
Marty [praying]: Our Father…
Ritchie: I’m not feeling nothing. Nothing at all. Try harder.
Marty: What? I’m…
Ritchie: This your last chance.
Marty: No. No. Don’t.
Ritchie: I think God’s busy.
…
Roy [to Ritchie]: The Gambinos want to hurt me. The Callies want my whole fucking family dead. The other day, there’s a car that I don’t recognize, it’s parked outside of my house. Looked Cuban enough, piece of shit car, dark skin, I think one thing. So I panic. I shoot him dead. Turns out it’s a fucking Puerto Rican kid selling vacuum cleaners to help pay his way through college.
…
Ritchie [to his brother]: Joey, look, it don’t matter. You killed a little girl. Nobody’s going to forgive you, okay?
Joey: Yeah, I know I did. I know.
[Ritchie just stares at him through the glass]
Joey: A wife? Fucking kids? Who are you kidding? You’re going to end up just like me, right here. So go fuck you and your fucking family.
Ritchie [slams the glass]: Take care.
[he turns and walks away]
…
Ritchie [shouting]: I buy you all this shit, I buy you this fucking house, I buy you your fucking jewelry! I send the girls to private school!
Deborah: Do not raise your voice to me, Richard.
Ritchie: “Richard?” What happened to “Ritchie?”
Deborah: I don’t know.
…
Mr. Freezy [to Ritchie]: So, is it my lucky day, or my last?
…
Ritchie: So who do you work for?
Mr. Freezy: I work for everyone. Gambinos, Luchezis, Pananos, you name it. What about you? Red with the arrow through the eye? That was you, wasn’t it? That’s fucking legendary. Was that target practice?
Ritchie: Somebody wants somebody dead, who am I to question it?
…
Mr Freezy: Let me show you something. Coroners are lazier than cops. If it looks like a heart attack, it is.
Ritchie: Arsenic?
Mr Freezy: Pure cyanide. Careful. It’s rare. Pricey. Comes as a powder. You can liquefy it, spray it, bake it in a fucking cake. Pour it in a guy’s shirt, he’s dead before you can say I’m sorry. No more stake outs. I can do that anywhere. I don’t have any friends, so it makes it easy. I only feel alone around other people. Couldn’t be truer.
…
Ritchie: My daughter’s birthday’s going on in there. Roy, I have guests. My whole family is there.
Roy: Maybe I should go in and say happy birthday to her. You’re doing hits with Freezy for Leo Marks behind my back? After what I’ve been through with Rosenthal?! Now you’re going to send me to another fucking funeral?
Ritchie: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Roy: Don’t fucking lie to me. Who do you think you’re talking to? You fucking lie to me. Maybe we’ll talk to your friend Terry, seems to think that you and I are friends. I can’t imagine what you’ve been telling your family. Poor sons of bitches, thinking their dad’s a decent guy. What are you going to tell your wife when I fucking blow your kids’ heads off? You think you got something good? Man becomes so full of it, he forgets what’s true.
[Ritchie’s daughter comes up to the car]
Ritchie: Don’t let him touch her. Don’t let him touch her.
Anabel: Daddy? Daddy? What’s going on?
Roy: All right, Jimmy, wait a minute. You best be looking over your shoulder, Ritchie, 'cause if we cross paths again, I’m going to bury your whole fucking family.
…
[b]Leo: Go. Go home to your family. Life can be very random sometimes.
Ritchie: Yeah. You’re right.
[he shoots him dead]
…
Ritchie [on phone]: Betsy? You paged me?
Betsy: Yes, Daddy. There was an accident. It’s Anabel. She’s in the hospital.
Ritchie: What happened, honey?
Betsy: It was a hit and run.
…
Ritchie [looking down at Deborah in the hospital]: This is the end of it. There ain’t going to be nothing else to be afraid of. I promise.
Deborah: I didn’t know I was supposed to be afraid.
…
Ritchie [voicover]: I never felt sorry for anything I done…other than hurting my family. The only thing I feel sorry for. I’m not looking for forgiveness. I’m not repenting. I know I’m wrong. I’m wrong. I do want my family to forgive me. Oh, boy. Ain’t going to make this one. Holy shit. This would never be me. This would not be me. You see the Iceman crying? Not very macho. But I hurt people that mean everything to me. But the only people that mean anything to me.
…
Postscript: Richard Kuklinski was sentenced to two life sentences in the same cell block as his brother Joey. He never saw his family again. In 2006, he died in Trenton State Prison. He was scheduled to testify at the trial of the Gambino family underboss. Foul play was suspected. Kuklinski is believed to have killed over 100 people.[/b]