The Iron Claw

dir: Sean Durkin

2023

This is such a profoundly sad story, served up with the visual trappings of brawny success and triumph, seemingly about the great achievements of a talented family.

But it’s far more about the catastrophes, some avoidable, some not, faced by successive members of a family ruled by a cruel tyrant.

I can’t speak as to what the actual Fritz Von Erich was like. The actual Kevin Von Erich, not Zac Efron playing him, claims that the film misrepresented what his dad was actually like, and that he was a decent and wonderful man.

And yet…

I wonder what he thinks is the reason that the family went through so much misfortune, with so many of his brothers taking their own lives. I take that back, that was unkind. I have no doubt, being the only one left standing, that he has thought long and hard over the years about everything that happened, as to how and why he lost all of his brothers.

Of course you can argue that the film’s narrative of a toxic father bullying his sons to greatness and that resulting in their early deaths is too neat, too pat, and you’d be right. It takes away people’s agency, implying that the Von Erich brothers all were victims with no ability to make decisions for themselves.

In reality apparently Kevin didn’t think there was a ‘curse’ on the family name “Von Erich”. After all, his father only went by the name, his mother’s maiden name apparently, because he thought it’d pop more since he wrestled as a heel, and post-WWII, who was hated more than the Nazis?

Very different to today, where too many people are being all Nazi-curious. Instead of asking “are we the baddies?” they keep instead asking “were they really so bad?”

Yes. They were. Stop it.

Fritz traded on that horrific backstory and used it to play the wrestling equivalent of a villain, or a heel, but his sons, his many sons, they were golden All-American boys. They might be heels, they might be babyfaces, but they were always USA USA USA.

The film plots a curious course, very deliberately, conflating the pressure Fritz placed upon all of them with success in the field of wrestling, which was even back then, more entertainment than sport, meaning the endings of matches were always known. Wrestling like that doesn’t work if it’s not coordinated in advance.

The film takes those matches seriously, and claims that the outcomes depend on how well the brothers perform. It’s an interesting conceit. It means the outcomes of matches aren’t fixed, aren’t set in stone: according to their father, if they work hard enough, if they fight hard enough, they will win regardless.

Which is, kinda nuts. But it does allow for the success of a wrestler to be about more than just what they were doing in the ring. They had to be convincing in their performances, they have to sell the things they’re doing, especially since they’re not “real”, and they have to be able to sell the beefs in interviews, made-up conflicts that are meant to give more meaning to their conflicts, to their matches.

Zac Efron, who people still think of as being this kid actor, is nearly in his forties, and has probably done a lot of acting in a lot of movies over the last twenty years. I don’t think I’ve seen any of them. He is something of a blank slate to me.

Before he even acts in this flick, the one thing that definitely has to be pointed out, is that in preparation for the role he transformed himself into an Arnie like figure in his prime.

And, it’s disturbing. It’s amazing.

When I was very young, there was a cartoon called He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. The main character was a guy called Adam, who was meek and mild, but once he did a thing with a sword he would transform into the most absurdly muscled man mountain.

My parents bought me the action figure / doll of He-Man, which I did not care about at all, because what I wanted was Battle Cat, who I adored. A big green great cat, what’s not to like?

Anyway, the He-Man figure, like the animated character, was an absurdity, a deliberate absurdity. Muscles and muscles, abs upon abs, so many muscles that actually moving around and doing anything with one’s arms would be almost impossible.

Efron, through a combination of diet, working out and probably shitloads of steroids, achieves that physique. It’s insane. It’s worrying, too.

He also, hopefully wearing a wig, achieves the rest of Kevin’s youthful look, with a blonde bowl cut, which makes him look even more like my action figure from back in the day.

Kevin is the one who takes his father completely at his word, and dedicates his entire existence to pleasing his father. He has no issue with trying to achieve his father’s failed dreams so that his father can live through him.

He, like his brothers, strive eternally for something they either can’t achieve or if they can, it’s only for a brief moment. The father sees the utility of playing them off against each other, and they act accordingly. Desperate, so desperate for something he was incapable of giving them.

And yet whatever criticisms one could aim at this film, the one thing I don’t fault, can’t fault, is the bond represented between Kevin and his brothers.

In touching ways, and slightly gross ways, it’s shown to be the most important relationship in their lives. Regardless of their father’s tyranny, their mother’s callous indifference, those brothers are shown to love each other to the exclusion almost of absolutely everyone else on the planet.

Even though Kevin, being the muscliest, should be at the top of the brother rankings, it’s actually Kerry Von Erich who is their father’s favourite. Played by Jeremy Allen White, whose name isn’t a household one, but when you just say “that guy from The Bear” then people know straight away, he looks like the only two jobs for him could be as a wrestler or as a member of Megadeth way back in the day. Despite being way shorter than the other brothers, he is just as absurdly ripped. So painfully swol. He is the favourite, because he’s going to the Olympics, to represent the States, and to win gold. Gold for his Germanic daddy.

Until Jimmy Carter fucks up (daddy’s) dreams yet again, boycotting the Olympics because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

That bastard. Having principles and such. How dare he?

Kerry comes back to the family fold, and immediately is told (by Father!) that he is to wrestle, and wrestle good. They all have to wrestle, even the brothers who have no interest in it.

There’s the tall, lanky Mike (Stanley Simons) who would rather be playing guitar in a band, playing the cock-rocky bombastic power ballads of Rush or Steely Dan. Mother (Maura Tierney) won’t allow it. Father (Holt McCallany) won’t allow it.

This isn’t the film where people defy their parents and become rock legends. This is the film where people do exactly what their parents say, and then die miserably anyway.

And there’s also David Von Erich (Harrison Dickinson), who doesn’t look like a beefy man mountain, but is quick with the banter or the shit talking stuff, something which isn’t Kevin’s forte, as we painfully see him trying to record promos.

Kevin basically watches his father push all of his brothers ahead of him for the big matches, for the title shots, for the acclaim, despite the fact that he’s done everything his father has ever wanted, or ever said. Words from Father are words from the lips of God. He still calls him ‘Sir’, despite being a father himself.

There is something unnerving about watching men this muscular, this physically strong, being so child-like, in a lot of ways. The worst thing their father’s brutality has wrought is that in their endless attempts to please him, they haven’t been able to mature at all, and they can never feel like anything they’ve done is ever enough. It’s not enough for him, so it’s not enough for them.

Kerry wins the belt his father coveted his entire life, and it’s not enough, eventually going on a booze and drugs fuelled motorbike ride that eventually leaves him missing a foot.

David keeps wrestling even though he’s throwing up blood. Mike, despite being built like a whippet, wrestles to please his father, and ends up not only permanently injured, but brain damaged after a coma caused by toxic shock syndrome.

Past a certain point in the flick, it becomes literally tragedy after tragedy after tragedy after tragedy. There’s no way to skirt around the fact that it happens. One of the major criticisms of the flick is that they left out one of the Von Erich brothers, being the youngest, Chris.

Okay, considering what happened to him, it would have been one more tragedy to add to the staggering list.

If there is something that is meant to leaven the misery it’s the relationship between Kevin and his eventual wife Pam (Lily James), but that suffers from the usual pitfalls that biopics are prone to. She tries valiantly. She humanises Kevin in a way no one else has tried thus far in his life, but that’s such a tired trope in itself. She literally teaches him how to talk to women, how to talk to anyone that isn’t a member of his family. When Kevin starts to believe in “the curse”, after so many of his brothers fall, he ends up staying away from the only person who likes him as he is, which seems like a bad idea.

I think Zac Efron’s pretty boy image and dreamy looks don’t at all detract from the bizarre yet touching performance he puts in here. There is something deeply disturbing about his appearance, maybe from imbibing heroic amounts of HGH so that he almost looks like a parody of hyper-masculinity, but it really is a strong acting performance. The work he does in the ring is also excellent, I have to say as an old-school wrestling fan from just after this era, and none of it would work if he wasn’t convincing as a superb performing athlete who could have been even more successful if his father hadn’t ruined them all.

It's hard to play an inarticulate man articulately, but he conveys it beautifully.

There are some other elements that they capture which are hilarious little details for me, but which enhance the flick mostly. The guy they got to play Harley Race (Kevin Anton) was perfectly cast as that weirdo with a dad bod (many of the wrestlers of the era weren’t buff steroid freaks; that was the era that followed), but the guy who plays The Nature Boy Ric Flair?

Nope. Nuh-huh. He looks enough like Flair, and he did the signature “Wooo!” in Flair’s style, but nah, did not sound like him during that hype interview at all. There are literally thousands of hours of the Nature Boy going on and on about Space Mountain (his penis) and talking shit about his opponents, and the rendition he gives is nowhere near close.

In the fight between Kevin and Flair, where Kevin is so angry at his father, he deploys the family’s signature move, the so-called Iron Claw of the title, and he does it in such a cruel way that he actually hurts Flair and is disqualified from the match, allegedly ruining his chances of getting a shot at the title.

Poor Kevin, he doesn’t get that the Iron Claw is the murderous grip his terrible father has had the whole family in for decades.

It’s hard, for me, to not have my heart break for the poor brothers, especially Kevin, who lost them all, but also to feel a terrible rage towards the father whenever he was on screen, or talked, but I realise that’s just because it’s such a strong performance. See, in a different film, an actor plays an arsehole father of kids who go on to become superstars, and it’s Will Smith winning an Oscar for King Richard, even after slapping the shit out of Chris Rock at the ceremony. And Holt McCallany plays the monstrous father of a family of champions, and gets nothing for his troubles.

Maybe it’s because he plays a German?

Who knows. The ending is mawkish and sentimental, but good goddamn did I need something like that after so many terrible things happen to the Von Erichs.

A great family, with a poison injected into its patriarchal heart.

8 times The Iron Claw is the film about wrestling since… out of 10

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“Ever since I was a child, people said my family was cursed. Mom tried to protect us with God. Dad tried to protect us with wrestling. He said if we were the toughest, the strongest, nothing could ever hurt us. I believed him. We all did.” – they fuck you up, your mum and dad, they may not mean to, but they do - The Iron Claw