Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7423 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-06-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.com
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. A vicious product of child abuse, Kuklinski was visited again by HBO in 2001, but this shameless redundancy was an obvious attempt to capitalize on the Sopranos phenomenon. Fascinating as a firsthand record of Mafia killing, these otherwise unsavory interviews serve little purpose beyond morbid exploitation. --Jeff Shannon

From the Back Cover
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 depict 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 favorite "enforcer". All the while he kept his work life secret from his adorning wife, his children, and the neighbors.
Kuklinski killed by gun, by knife, by Molotov cocktail, by cyanide and by other unorthodox weapons. He tells a particularly grim story of how he once shot a stranger in the forehead with a crossbow. It wasn’t a contract hit, it wasn’t personal and it wasn’t about money. "I just wanted to see if this thing worked," he says dryly.
In 1986, after three years with a task force bearing down on him, Kuklinski was betrayed by "the only man I didn’t kill." He continues to serve a multiple life sentence in Trenton Maximum Security Prison. The documentary concludes: "The files on the Iceman will never be closed as long as the number and identities of the people he killed remain unknown."

Customer Reviews

An incredible personal look at the motivations of a killer
I first picked up this title when I was browsing through the "new movie" section at blockbuster about a year ago. I was looking for a mafia-type movie and I ended up leaving the video place pleasantly suprised. The title gives an in-depth look into the life or Richard Kuklinski, a family man on one side, and heartless mafioso on the other. Kuklinski is featured almost the whole time in the documentary; only a few other people (like the agent that brought him down) are interviewed. He gives the viewers a sense of motivation for why he went into a life of crime, which stemmed from an abusive, heartless and non-loving family. He also goes into his different methods of murder (poison was his favorite; non-messy and hard to trace). We also see a side of him in which he regrets a handful of the murders. It really moved me when he talked about how he gave one man an hour to pray before he killed him and how he regrets going through with it. If you want a documentary that will move you and inform you at the same time, The Iceman is what you should be watching tonight.

A trip into the mind of a man who killed for a living.
Quite interesting documentary about Richard Kuklinski, who whacked people for the Gambino Crime family and killed anyone who could testify against him & also set up his own "kill for money" operation. Although I was sympathetic to his "wanting to take care of his family", but truly the guy was sick & should have been given the death penalty.

The stories of him doing contract hits are really interesting & it was even funny to know that one of his accomplices (who he later killed) used a "Mr. Softee" Ice Cream truck while going out on contract hits.

It's a good documentary although a bit shocking.
I recommend it.

No Part III
This DVD does not contain part 3 (the psychiatrist interview). Buy the other DVD The Iceman Interviews.