Welcome back to Movie Recap. Today I'm gonna show you a 2012 American biographical crime
film called, The Iceman. Spoilers ahead. Sit back, relax and enjoy the video.
The movie starts with Richard Kuklinski being interviewed.
He looks back on the day he started doing his job in Jersey City, New Jersey, and it was April 29,
1964, when he first had a date with Deborah. He asks her for a coffee in a local shop,
and they talk about their lives and their means of living; he says that he's doing
cartoons in Disney as a dubber. At first, Ritchie is hesitant to talk about his life,
and Deborah is shy of him because he doesn't ask anything; he's like a boring conversationalist.
When they finish their date, Deborah's aunt picks her up as she goes home. Then Ritchie goes
straight to the billiard shop where he plays with his friends, they bring up Deborah as a topic,
and Earl, one of his playmates, says that he knows her because she's been dating his other friend,
like a whore. Ritchie starts to get pissed, and he finishes the game, Earl gets frustrated with how
he plays, and he loses the game. They almost get into a fight when he picks up the money,
but he just leaves it there instead. Earl walks out and goes straight to his car. When
he opens his car, he doesn't notice Ritchie being there, and Ritchie slices his neck with a knife.
On September 14, 1965, in Elmer, New Jersey, Ritchie was waiting in a hospital because Deborah
gave birth to their first child, a daughter. After that, he goes back to his laboratory where
he makes porn films, his friend Roy Lapron calls him and tells him that their customer is asking
for the films, but since Ritchie is tired and they are seven boxes short, he will go home and
take a rest first. When he goes outside, a car comes with three guys inside, looking for Dino.
The boss is Roy Demeo and two assistants, Josh Rosenthal and Mickey Spicoli. Roy
insists on continuing inside the lab even if Ritchie explains that Dino isn't there;
when they are inside, they find no one and start to punch and threaten Ritchie.
Before they leave, Josh tells Ritchie to come to Gemini Lounge tomorrow morning.
Ritchie goes home first to take care of his daughter, and he finds out in the newspaper that
Deborah is reading that she's looking for a bigger place. They get to sleep, and the following day,
Ritchie goes to the lounge, and the three drive him. They try to scare him by pointing a gun at
his face, but Ritchie is emotionless. When a beggar starts to knock at their window,
Roy gets an idea to test Ritchie's loyalty; he asks him to go outside and kill the beggar.
So he did what he asked him to do. From then on, Roy employs Ritchie as his hitman;
he needs to collect money and debts from people and kill them.
Ritchie starts to get big money and is able to provide more for his family.
On May 5, 1975, in Dumont, New Jersey, Ritchie took out his friends for a glamorous dinner.
It's the same friends he's been going out with a few years back, and its Terry and Dino. They bring
their wives and talk about their lives. One of the women mistakenly says that Ritchie is doing porn,
not cartoons. But Deborah explains his work, and he's in currency exchange. That's why they
get rich so fast. They get home and have a great dinner when they are about to finish.
On February 13, 1976, Josh dealt with two Cubans for drugs on Lower East Side,
Manhattan. He kills them, steals the money, and then leaves when the transaction finishes. On
the other side, Ritchie and Deborah are making love in their bedroom when their daughter knocks
on the door because Betsy, their youngest, has a terrible dream. They talk about the Vietnam war.
Ritchie sends them to their beds to sleep and starts to make love again.
The following day, a messenger named Leo is in the lounge talking to Roy;
he explains that the Gambinos know what Josh did to their guys. Now, they are mad and want to hunt
them down. Leo says they should kill Josh, but Roy refuses because he treats Josh like his own son.
They get into a big fight, and Roy is stressed out. Roy assures him that he will take care of
Josh and that the Gambinos will not see where he is and will not do it again.
In Kuklinski's house, Anabel is helping his dad Ritchie to tie his tie; he sends them to school
and goes to his job. He goes to a hotel wherein Marty and a prostitute named Alex are in a room.
Marty is taking a video of Alex, and they start to kiss when Ritchie knocks on the door and puts him
in a room. Marty is now talking to Roy about Josh and everything they need to do over the phone.
Ritchie is about to kill Marty when the conversation ends, but he asks him to pray first,
but it doesn't work, so he shoots him and kills him. When Ritchie is about to go out,
he notices someone inside the closet, so he checks and finds out that Alex is inside;
he pulls her out and lets her escape.
However, a guy named Robert Pronge, as known as Freezy, is there and gives them time to go
outside the building, so they do because he blows the building up. Ritchie follows Freezy into an
ice cream truck, and he gets pissed at him because Ritchie lets Alex escape, known to the fact that
she sees his face. They try to chase her, but it's unsuccessful because Ritchie refuses to;
he says he has a reputation and doesn't kill women and children. Freezy is mad and says
to Richie that he owes him one. Freezy drives his car and leaves Ritchie alone.
The following night, Roy calls Ritchie into his office, they are about to have dinner,
but Roy is frank with his frustration towards Ritchie because he leaves a witness.
He explains everything about the Gambinos and how he holds them captive of Josh for a moment.
Roy also says they will stop for a while because they are being hunted down,
and Ritchie is decommissioned. Ritchie left frustrated because he is now unemployed.
The police are calling him at home, but he always hangs up the phone.
Not knowingly, he visits Treston State Prison, where his older brother,
Joey, is imprisoned there for raping and killing a 12-year-old kid. They talk for a
while because he hasn't been visiting for 11 years out of 12 years of Joey being inside.
Joey asks for Ritchie's help to get a lawyer, but they fight. Joey says to Ritchie that he's not a
different form; he will also be a prisoner like him. Ritchie starts to step out of prison and
continuously walks out, while Joey curses, shouts and swears at him for being a useless brother.
Ritchie goes straight to the skating park with his family;
he watches his daughters playing while Deborah talks to a friend. When they are about to go home,
Ritchie is out of focus, and he accidentally bumps the car in front of him; the man from
the car goes outside and confronts him, but when Ritchie pulls out himself from the car,
the guy is frightened, and he goes back to his car. They thought it would be okay, but the guy
swears to Ritchie's family, which causes him to be outrageous. He chases the car from the street
to the streets even if his wife Deborah and his kids are shouting at him to stop. The chasing
scene only finishes when a cab blocks him away. Deborah is furious at Ritchie, and he says sorry.
After the drama on the road, Ritchie goes home and takes a shower; he remembers his
childhood when he sees his brother in their room being physically abused by their father.
The coldness and his emotionlessness came from there.
Ritchie is watching TV in their living room when Deborah asks him what is wrong;
she whines about how he acts like he doesn't care anymore; Ritchie begins to be outrageous again;
he loses his control and loses his temper. He throws away their things and smashes everything.
Deborah apologizes, and Ritchie explains that he only cares about his family.
That is the first time that he gets mad like that.
The next morning, he meets up with Freezy; he asks for help since he's currently unemployed.
They agree to become partners in crime; with a 50/50 split, Ritchie will do the work while Freezy
is about the details. Also, Freezy shows him the body inside the freezer in the ice cream truck,
where he freezes it until the right time to dump it anywhere.
They start to chop people's body parts, and then they will freeze them after Ritchie kills them.
However, despite that kind of work, Ritchie can still bring his family
to an expensive restaurant to dine in and enjoy themselves.
In the Gemini Lounge, Roy asks his people to come, and Leo is there. They get into a fight
because of the Gambinos' boys that Josh killed. Roy shoots Josh, which leads to his death,
which is hard for him to do. That's his only way to shut up the Gambinos
Leo goes inside a cinema in New York, and he speaks to Freezy about planning to kill someone;
he says that he will give them 40 grand if they successfully kill the man and another
ten grand if it looks like a natural death. Leo gave the picture of the guy, then he left.
Back in the office, Freezy and Ritchie discuss how they will make the killing;
Ritchie will do Freezy's technique, which is using cyanide; it's his first time doing it.
Freezy teaches him how to blow the guy the powder, and it will kill him.
It's very important to make it a more natural death so that they will get ten additional grands.
So Ritchie and Freezy go to the bar. They start to get along with people dancing;
while Freezy is standing by, Ritchie slowly blows the powder to the man's face, and the man begins
to cough and can't breathe. When they are about to go outside, Terry shouts Ritchie's name; he asks
for help with a job since he knows what Ritchie is doing. Ritchie left Terry there, and the man died.
Ritchie is writing a poem while shaving his beard because it's Anabel's 16th birthday, and they have
many guests in the house. The party starts. Someone is knocking at their door; it's Roy's
henchman, so Ritchie goes outside first and inside Roy's car. Deborah is looking at the window.
When Ritchie is inside, Roy immediately pulls out his gun and points it out to Ritchie;
he is furious. He finds out that Ritchie is doing work with Freezy under Leo Marks.
Ritchie denies it at first. Anabel starts to walk towards the car,
and Ritchie begs Roy and his boys not to touch her. When Anabel is knocking at the car's window,
asking how Ritchie is, Roy commands his boys not to touch her, and they let him out. He
goes back to his house full of anger, hate, and frustration. He asks Terry what he said,
but Terry denies anything. The veins in his head are popping out with fury.
On Christmas Day, Freezy is still calling Ritchie, which pisses him off because he is ruining his
Christmas. They plan to kill another person. Ritchie is talking to Terry over the payphone,
saying the job that he'd like to do, Ritchie gives him a very light job,
and Terry says his gratitude and then leaves.
In a cemetery, Ritchie is inside Leo's car, he's asking for the 50 grand he promised them,
but Leo doesn't give it to him because of different circumstances. Ritchie tries to
threaten him, but Leo reminds him that he will not receive his money if he kills him.
When Ritchie calms down and is about to go down the car, Leo talks about Ritchie's family,
and he says they don't have any idea how bad their father is. It triggers Ritchie,
and he shoots him, which leads to his death. He immediately recognizes what he did and gets mad.
When he left Leo's body in the car, Betsy paged him, saying that Anabel was in the hospital
because of a hit and run. Ritchie immediately goes to the hospital and sees his daughter in a
critical condition, Deborah is also mad at him, and he excuses that it's because of his job.
He leaves the hospital and meets up with Freezy.
Ritchie and Freezy talk about the money and their plans when they are in the park.
Ritchie gets mad and strangles Freezy, and he thinks he will kill him.
But before he leaves, he makes sure that Freezy is dead, so he kills him.
Ritchie goes back to the hospital; his best friend Dino is also there. He tells him what
happened to Terry because he was killed and dumped out of the garbage. He also describes
the notorious killer in a town called The Iceman. He deflected the body first so that the police
would not know the victim's exact death before dumping it or revealing the body to the public.
Ritchie goes into a restaurant to meet up with Dominick, another hitman working under the
Lachuzis; both make a deal to kill using cyanide. Ritchie goes home first to take care of his sick
wife, Deborah. He meets with Dominick to give the cyanide, and while he will make a sandwich
out of it, he tries to give some pieces to a stray cat. When he puts Deborah inside the car,
he notices that the kitten didn't die, so he knows there is something wrong.
When Ritchie starts his car, police cars immediately show up and block the road. They
arrest him and take Deborah into their custody. Later, he discovers that Dominick is an undercover
agent who works to hunt him. It takes five men to take down Ritchie because he is a big man,
and he even tries to fight against the cops, but he isn't able to.
The real-life news made before is shown that the notorious killer has been caught.
His family is still there for his case, his wife and his daughters at the court hearing.
The movie ends with an old Ritchie being interviewed; he is being asked if he is
sorry for anything he has done, but he says he's not. He's sorry for the only thing that is hurting
those people who matter to him the most, his family. He hopes his family can forgive him.