The Iceman

Its title and the gentle stress on Chris Evans in a supporting role notwithstanding, The Iceman is in no way another comic-book spin-off, but maybe it should have been? Instead, it's a merely adequate mob thriller, adapted by director Ariel Vromen and co-writer Morgan Land from the life story of actual mafia-affiliated serial killer Richard Kuklinski, here played as an acting exercise for the towering, unchallenged Michael Shannon. One reason for the title is Kuklinski's habit of freezing his victims' corpses to obscure their times of death. Otherwise, he was a family man, with a wife (Winona Ryder), two daughters and a lush patch of fashionably modulating facial hair, in suburban 1970s New Jersey. The rest is straight-goombah movie stuff: tense loyalty tests, loose ends in need of ruthless tying up, escalating threats to family, etc. At least Shannon will get to play a proper comic-book villain in Man of Steel later this summer.