A few members of the SlamWrestling.net team had the opportunity to catch a screening of The Iron Claw together in Toronto’s west end, a week ahead of the film’s wide release, and another caught a screening in San Francisco.
And now, here we are using our own Iron Claws to express our thoughts on the film.
The story of the Von Erichs is truly a tragedy. When I first heard their story was going to be adapted into a full-length, theatrical release film, I immediately wondered how a non-wrestling-oriented audience would respond to the movie and take in its heavy content.
I realized after seeing the movie, you don’t need to be a crazy wrestling buff to understand the film. At the core of the Von Erich tragedy is a story of a deep brotherly bond, that was shattered due to a string of unfortunate deaths, and also due in part to the tough-love approach of parenting courtesy of the Von Erich patriarch, Fritz.
Zac Efron truly shines in the film, hats off to him for taking on such a tough role. He’s really found his stride as an actor… long gone are the Troy Bolton days, haha. As for Jeremy Allen White, who I was told is a quality actor going into this, that is certainly the case and I’d love to see some of his other work in Shameless and The Bear. Lily James was great too, overall the entire cast did an outstanding job. I can’t say enough nice things about the acting efforts. It translated well to the wrestling also.
Seeing the film alongside my father, who is not a huge wrestling fan himself, I was delighted to know the film pulled at his heartstrings too despite not filling him in on the Von Erich story before the screening. Aside from cutting out Chris Von Erich from the plot (I understand it would’ve added to the runtime, but it’s part of the tragedy nonetheless), The Iron Claw is an incredible film to see, if you can find yourself muscling through the tough parts.
The five words you need to know most about this movie appear at the very beginning: “Inspired by a true story.” Seeing it, I immediately knew what I was in for, not a Dark Side of the Ring-like documentary, but rather a dramatized version of the Von Erich tale wrestling fans know all too well. It would be easy, especially as a journalist who leans heavily into facts, to pick apart details like wonky timelines or a missing brother. But that’s not the point, right?
The Iron Claw was produced for people like my wife, who accompanied me to the theater without knowing anything in advance about the numerous tragedies that befell one of the most famous families in professional wrestling. The story hooked her. As did the portrayals by seasoned actors like Zac Efron (Kevin) and Jeremy Allen White (Kerry), both of whom more than looked their parts.
Which isn’t to say the technical side of wrestling was overlooked. Far from it. With Chavo Guerrero, Jr. serving as a consultant and MJF as an executive producer, there’s an authenticity to the in-ring presentation. It just doesn’t dominate the film.
Since giving stars as a rating system seems to be controversial in the wrestling business, I’ll go the Hollywood route and give the movie two thumbs up.
Irv Muchnick and Jon Langmead at a screening of The Iron Claw.
Like a great wrestling match, The Iron Claw has an awful lot to recommend it if you can just manage to shut off any need to pick through the film for factual slips. As wrestling fans, we owe director Sean Durkin a debt of gratitude for the exactitude with which he recreates the look and feel of the wrestling world of the early 1980s. He resists the pitfalls into which so many other films about wrestling have slipped and goes to admirable lengths to maintain the era’s look and feel. He fills his script with enough easter eggs to convince even the most would-be insider that he knows his stuff. Most importantly, he treats the wrestlers themselves with a gentle hand, respecting the strange world they inhabit, and almost more importantly, never overstating what it was they were doing in the ring.
The film’s biggest challenge is working around the strange black hole at its center. As Kevin, the oldest and only surviving Von Erich brother, Zac Efron is a question mark. He plays Kevin as a man with no apparent inner life who is almost incapable of responding to the tragedy unfolding around him. (Efron would make an excellent Mike Pence.) The real Kevin Von Erich possesses a scratchy baritone voice with a long Texas drawl that he pairs with a strange charisma. He seems to be in possession of a secret that he refuses to tell you. Efron can’t manage to bring him to life. His physical transformation, about which much is being written, is more of a distraction than an asset. Different viewers will imbue his performance with whatever emotions they bring to the theatre, which, in the end, maybe the point. In the film, to avoid his own tragic end, Kevin lashes himself at his wife, played by Lily James, and settles into a life of what could only have been a roiling domesticity. That two of his own sons went on to become professional wrestlers is a fact that the film conveniently sidesteps.
Much more engaging are Stanley Simons as the tragic Mike, Jeremy Allen White as the doomed lunkhead Kerry, and, in particular, Harris Dickinson as the preternaturally gifted David. The film would be lost without them. As the unloving, unrelenting Fritz, the father who ranks his children like their Division I football teams, Holt McCallany towers over his children. He stops short of turning Fritz into a monster and instead manages to communicate a sad, useless kind of menace. In the ring, he played an unyielding German giant, bullying and torturing his opponents into submission. In his private life, he came to live his gimmick, driving almost all of his children to dark ends.
The tragedy of the Von Erichs is too big for any film to contain. To look at it head-on is simply too much. The Iron Claw manages to mostly treat the story with the pained awe that it deserves, without sacrificing the moments of joy and goofy elation that make the family’s story so compelling in the first place.
As someone who was alive during the run on top of the Von Erichs, and as someone who has written about them through the years, befriending many of their friends, I went into The Iron Claw with a bit of trepidation. Any fears were unfounded, as pro wrestling was treated with respect, and the story focused on the family. They did a good job moving things along and never getting bogged down in minutiae.
The experience was a lot like watching The Wrestler for the first time, Darren Aronofsky’s masterpiece from 2008. At that screening, a matinee with a bunch of little old ladies who had heard about this art film, I remember laughing at inappropriate parts because not only did I recognize many people I knew, but I knew the character — Mickey Rourke’s character was pretty darn close to what “The Missing Link” Dewey Robertson was like at the end of his days. So in The Iron Claw, I took delight in seeing James Beard in the ring — and he’d been putting the movie over to me since July — or Chavo Guerrero, or the fact that they had someone who looked a whole like Bill Colville accompanying the Von Erichs to the ring as security … or even the brief shot of the office where the bald guy had to have been Gary Hart, who was a long-time booker (but no need for him in this story). I have had many chats with announcer Bill Mercer, so seeing him portrayed accurately was great as well.
For a long-time fan and historian, there are tons of little slip-ups, factual errors, and inaccuracies, but I can live with them for the sake of a good story. The Iron Claw is a good, solid movie, with some great acting. Don’t let facts get in your way of enjoying it.
TOP PHOTO: Boris Roberto Aguilar, Greg Oliver, Joseph Casciaro, and Amos Mina at a screening of The Iron Claw on Wednesday, December 13, 2023.
RELATED LINKS
- Review: Time flies, inconsistently, in the flawed but good movie ‘The Iron Claw’
- Von Erich story archive & The Iron Claw archive