The Iron Claw opens in theaters Friday, December 22.
Director Sean Durkin’s reverence for wrestling is on full display in The Iron Claw. This is the greatest success of the film, a biopic chronicling the legendary Von Erich wrestling dynasty – a tragic tale Durkin has been trying to bring to the screen for years. To tell a story like this requires a certain amount of love, but not the blind kind. The Iron Claw expresses an affection that makes a person willing to show the good, the bad, and the ugly of an industry that has grown considerably since the 1970s, but still has a long way to go. It’s a sentiment that is true for both wrestling as a whole, and the culture that surrounds it.
It’s that culture that led to the relationship between Jack “Fritz Von Ehrich” Adkisson (Holt McCallany) and his sons Kevin (Zac Efron), Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), David (Harris Dickinson), and Mike (Stanley Simons), which obviously plays a central role in the story alongside the unbreakable bond between the Von Erich brothers. The latter is conveyed quite well, giving The Iron Claw the heart that you’d hope to see in any sports drama – based on a true story or otherwise. The former is, unfortunately, one of The Iron Claw’s many flaws.
Durkins’ affinity for the sport and the chemistry between Efron, White, Dickinson, and Simons go a long way, but they’re not enough on their own. The Iron Claw is at odds with being a biopic and a story that so desperately wants to provide emotional catharsis for the surviving Von Erich family members. Each aspect suffers as a result.
The Von Erich boys all loved their father, for better or worse. And, in making a movie that honors them, Durkin seems to have been willing to smooth over certain events in favor of nodding to the family’s legacy. As a result, the viewer learns what Fritz Von Erich drove his sons to, yet comes away with barely a hint of what was to come for the man. (Though that information isn’t exactly hard to come by.) It’s a difficult tightrope to walk, and The Iron Claw’s competing impulses do not always go hand-in-hand. And, if there was intention to shift away from said format and to strictly treat these people as characters in a story, the satisfactory resolution to a villain arc remains unmet.
Any comeuppance for Fritz – and electing to avoid the reality of what happened to the real man (again: Wikipedia exists) – is pushed aside in favor of yet another decision that was clearly made for closure and out of adoration for the family. But it ends up contributing to the second most baffling aspect of The Iron Claw, which is happy to remain grounded in the actual facts of the Von Erich saga until an interlude that veers wildly into the realms of the speculative and surreal. I won’t describe the scene in detail, but you will most certainly know it when you see it. There’s a boat, and one of the weirdest onscreen hugs you’ll ever witness.
Of course, that pales in comparison to the decision to eliminate an entire Von Erich brother from the story. When we review, it’s our job to review the film we got, not the one we wanted. But if you’re going to make a biopic that’s meant to honor a family, eliminating a member of that family in favor of runtime isn’t the move. Obviously, those unfamiliar with the Von Erichs are going to have no idea that Durkin and team have snapped Chris Von Erich out of existence. But this critic did know that, and found it to be a huge bummer.
The Iron Claw’s competing impulses do not always go hand-in-hand
The Iron Claw is the tale of two movies. It’s a beautifully shot film with ugly scene transitions. It’s an incredible depiction of brotherly love that stands in stark contrast to the utter lack of chemistry between Efron and Lily James (who plays Kevin’s wife, Pam Adkisson). It is, at the very least, worth mentioning that there isn’t a bad performance in the bunch – Efron and White are particularly remarkable here.
If you love wrestling, there’s stuff to enjoy here. And despite all of its issues, it’s almost hard to fault Durkin for the movie that he made, because it is such a love letter to a family beset by tragedy. But, fault or no fault, The Iron Claw can’t decide what it wants to be.
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