Underrated Crime Thriller Tells True Tale Of Mob Hitman

Not to spoil the movie, which delivers an absolutely fantastic climax in the final few scenes, but the real-life Richard Kuklinski was apprehended by a police sting operation in 1986. Once incarcerated, Kuklinski claimed credit for more than 100 cold-blooded murders, resulting in the iceman receiving four consecutive life sentences in prison.

As the final credits roll on the last leg of The Iceman movie, a few screen titles reveal that Kuklinski died under mysterious circumstances in 2006, just days before he was expected to testify against a high-ranking Gambino mob family associate.

Unlike most real-life mobsters, Kuklinski didn’t honor the code of silence once he was placed in prison. In fact, most experts tend to agree that the Iceman took credit for numerous slayings that he didn’t actually commit, either for some kind of twisted glory, or to let his fellow hitmen off the hook. For instance, Kuklinski claimed to have killed Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa, though investigators far and wide have dismissed his story as a hoax.