Richard Leonard Kuklinski was a real life contract killer in New York in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, with a wife and two daughters in suburban New Jersey who knew nothing about his being a hit man. The movie version gives Michael Shannon a chance to do his best simmering slab, killing bad men for Ray Liotta while Winona Ryder stays home with the kids. While it's no classic of the mob movie genre, Shannon vividly brings to life a guy who is so much the product of his generation: the taciturn family man who channels the lessons of an abusive father into a violence-filled career. No contradiction there. A secondary pleasure: a lot of crazy 'staches and 'burns on the other goodfellas: Chris Evans, James Franco, Stephen Dorff and Robert Davi. David Schwimmer even gets a ponytail.
