Richard Kuklanski

'It's better to give than receive.' You would be mistaken if you thought these were the words of Jesus or Gandhi or the Dalai Lama. It is actually something that infamous contract killer Richard Kuklanski said when describing how he reacted to being the victim of bullying as a teenager. His opinion was that it's better to give out violence than to receive. I think self-defence is wholly justified and morally acceptable but this 'giving out' by Kuklanski as a teenager soon escalated into a brutality and savageness that went far beyond standing up for himself. Maybe his innate blood-lust would have manifested itself in some way later on in life but soon his talent for violence was noticed by the Mafia and he started to kill for them professionally. He admits that he would rather have chosen a different way of life but this admission does not mean that he had any guilt or regret for the hundreds of men he executed. He reminded me a bit of Ethan Hawke's character in Brooklyn's Finest, a corrupt cop who brutalises a part of himself to kill for money and thus provide for his family. Kuklanski is similiar in some ways. It would be easy to judge him and brand him an evil monster but in the documentary I watched about him on YouTube he claimed to have a genuine love for his family. When interviewed he confessed that the only regret he had was the pain that his eventual arrest and conviction caused his family. There must have been some part of him that was able to disconnect his humanity to lead this double life: to function, on one hand, as a apparently loving family man and, on the other hand, as a ruthless contract killer. In the interviews he gave for HBO in 1992 and then 2001 he is very open about his way of life as a killer and some have accused him of enjoying the pubicity and his own notority. Perhaps this is true but it is hard to know what to make of him. After watching the 1992 interview one journalist said "After watching, you may feel some minds are better left unpenetrated." I certainly don't wish to glamourise or absolve him, and I hope the upcoming film about his life, starring the wonderful Michael Shannon, does not do the same. Richard Kuklanski was an extremely dangerous, fascinating but ultimately tragic man.