The Iceman is an appropriate title for this pair of HBO specials, because the words of former Mafia enforcer Richard Kuklinski will chill you to the bone. Speaking in the monotonous drone of a man who has numbed himself with remorseless brutality, Kuklinski was first interviewed in 1991, five years after receiving consecutive life sentences for multiple murders. Specializing in the tidy use of cyanide, Kuklinski lived a double life, like the fictional hitmen in The Sopranos and Road to Perdition, passing as a "businessman" and devoted husband and father. He describes numerous killings in graphic detail, expressing nearly tearful regret only when lamenting the deception of his family.
After years of silence, "The Iceman" speaks. In two separate interviews, nearly ten years apart, Richard Kuklinski, a notorious killer-for-hire and top enforcer for the Gambino crime family, tells his unusual story and reveals on camera the gruesome details of his crimes, some of which are told here for the first time. The Iceman: Confessions of a Mafia Hitman depicts the incredible life of a man who was raised on violence - becoming immune to it - from his first taste of revenge, to his Mafia "audition" and his career as a favourite "enforcer". All the while he kept his work life secret from his adoring wife, children, and neighbours.
What makes a hit-man tick? For the first time this brutal killer speaks to a renowned psychiatrist on camera. He's admitted to killing over 200 people and he's still ticking.
Richard Kuklinski doesn't hold back any details in this grim, but somehow interesting documentary that draws you in despite it's nature