Michael Shannon is on a roll: “Revolutionary Road”, “The Runaways”, “Take Shelter”, “Man Of Steel”. He’s a movie star with real acting talents, on full display in “The Iceman”. He deserves major recognition for playing notorious contract killer Richard Kuklinski, who murdered 100 men before his arrest in 1986. “I dub cartoons for Disney” he tells his wife to be (played by Winona Ryder). And he continues to keep secrets from his family through the decades, moving on from porn to become a contract killer for non other than Ray Liotta. Hold on tight. It’s a beast of a movie that loses some of its momentum during the last act. But director Ariel Vromen, working from a script he wrote with Morgan Land takes you on a roller coaster ride. Murder is just another day at the office for Kuklinski, and the film hammers that theme with powerful results. And the acting is aces, especially Shannon mixing it up with the superb Ray Liotta as a cold-blooded crime boss. They make this movie a potently nasty provocation. “The Iceman” sticks with you. It’s definitely a keeper.

Rating: 3/4