In this story of one man's career, Richard Kuklinski (Shannon) starts off on the fringes of organized crime, running a film laboratory that develops pornographic movies - yet another high-paying, middle-class job killed off by the digital revolution. He came home every night to their home in the suburbs and claimed to be a currency speculator. Richard Kuklinski was a private contract killer, in the employ of a Mafia boss for two decades, who killed an estimated 100 people. In 'The Iceman,' he plays a real-life monster, but an understandable one, whose slow and faulty thinking is available to us, thanks to Shannon's inexplicable transparency. They know that if they break something or hurt somebody, they can almost feel better. For them, the simplest solution - the most ready, the one that's right in front of them and ever-available because they are, for one thing, physically huge - is violence.

His area of concentration is more specific: He plays simple men experiencing complex psychological pain (torment, in fact), who are in search of simple solutions for that pain, solutions they can understand.

It's not enough to say that Shannon plays men in psychological pain. This is becoming a unique and significant career. Shannon is a little like Linda Ronstadt that way.

You absolutely know it, and yet neither Shannon nor the director has done anything to tip you off, beyond showing Shannon looking at somebody. But then two or three seconds later, the line is crossed, and you know he is going to kill this guy. He lets one insult slide, then lets another go, even as he is becoming annoyed. The face barely moves, and yet it tells a whole story. Shannon's face receives the insults impassively. First the guy considers not paying, then he starts flinging insults. We see it all, even when the other people onscreen miss it.Ī good example of this comes in an early scene in 'The Iceman.' He has just hustled a guy at pool, and the guy isn't happy about it. Just put the camera on that face - he doesn't have to move a muscle - and things start to happen. More than most actors, including most screen actors, Michael Shannon belongs in movies. Starring Michael Shannon, Ray Liotta and Winona Ryder.

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