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A mirror provides a not-so-subtle hint that Michael Shannon has more than one side to him in 'The Iceman'

(MILLENNIUM)

Richard Kuklinski was a cold-hearted killer, dubbed "The Iceman" not only for his habit of freezing the corpses — all the better to mess with time-of-death estimates — but his remorseless, pitiless approach.

So why should we care about him?

That's the question that someone — the director, the writer, the star — should have asked, early on, in the making of the movie "The Iceman." But if they came up with any answers, they're not onscreen.

What clearly appealed to the filmmakers was the supposed duality of the man. To his neighbors, friends, even his family, Kuklinski was a poor kid who made good, a family guy with a nice house in Dumont.

In reality, he was a contract killer.

But "The Iceman" actually skirts a lot of the real reality. Although it does show Kuklinski as a man with an always murderous temper, in fact he was a serial killer long before he started doing jobs for the Mafia, starting with cats and dogs and working up to homeless men in New York.

It's like the career counselors always tell you — find something you love, and then find someone to pay you to do it.

But the movie downplays his early, amateur status, while overplaying the "family man" idea. It's a favorite cliche of mob movies — the gangster who takes time off from blowtorching stoolies to barbecue on the patio. But Kuklinski's wife (given a new name here) said he was brutal at home, too, and broke her nose more than once.

The movie ignores or simplifies all that, focusing instead on his matter-of-fact approach to murder. (To break the monotony, apparently, he varied his methods — stiletto, icepick, .45, strangulation, even a spray bottle filled with liquid cyanide.)

Corpse by gory corpse, the movie death count rises.

The drama, though, stays flat.

There are a few familiar and hard-bitten faces among the supporting cast, including Ray Liotta and Robert Davi as mobsters. David Schwimmer, of all people, plays a ponytailed gangster, and Winona Ryder, looking less brittle than she has in years, is Kuklinski's self-deceiving wife.

James Franco also shows up, for no apparent reason. But then that's often the case with James Franco.

Kuklinski, meanwhile, is played by Michael Shannon, who certainly has the blankly lethal gaze down right, as well as the occasional grimacing fits of rage. But the casting actually works against the film; where's the surprise in seeing Shannon snap necks? He always looks dangerous. (The brilliant move would have been casting someone like Louis C.K.)

At least the film is full of a grungy nostalgia, crammed with awful wallpaper, grotesque sideburns and stock footage of good old, bad old Times Square, when the cowboys were midnight, not naked. (Although — sorry — the Shreveport locations don't come close to passing for Jersey).

But there's not much style here, beyond the uniformly good acting, and even less of a point. Kuklinski is a violent sociopath when we first meet him in Jersey City, and a violent sociopath when we leave him in Trenton State Prison; there's no journey between the two scenes, no dawning of consciousness. Just a crazy man murdering sleazy people.

And why we should pay money to watch that is something the movie never figures out.

Ratings note: The film contains gore, violence, nudity, sexual situations, drug references and strong language.

'The Iceman' (R) Millennium (106 min.)

Directed by Ariel Vromen. With Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder, Chris Evans. Now playing in New York.

★ ★