The Iron Claw (2023)

It is a rare treat these days to go into a film knowing absolutely nothing about it. Yet I somehow managed just that when scrolling through Amazon Prime looking for things to watch in the wee hours of the night. Something about the tagline intrigued me and I, falsely, assumed that it was a wrestling movie based on the famous Hart family. How wrong I was.  

Set mostly in Dallas, TX in the late 1970s and early 80s, this film instead tells the true life story of the Von Erich family - all of whom, save the mother, were professional wrestlers. If you read this post, you will know that I was quite the fan back in the day but these guys were a little bit before my time. So I went into the film truly clueless, which was an absolute treat. 

From the first frame you felt like you were in good hands. After a black & white cold open, the film really begins with that over-saturated, film-grain texture that draws you in like some kind of spooky voodoo magic. The shot is simply Zac Efron waking up and getting out of bed, but he is so ridiculously ripped that it immediately feels larger than life. The production design is completely on point. It's all real, textured, and immediately creates a sense of time and place. Very appropriate, of course, if dealing with the subject matter of professional wrestling where subtlety is not a value often on display.  

From there we delve deep into the world of pre-WWF wrestling, specifically the Texas region. Even more specifically the Dallas Sportatorium - a now defunct venue where the Von Erich brothers became megastars. Immediately you are immersed in the action, all of which is filmed and put together in such a way that you really felt every slap, suplex, choke-hold or bodyslam. It's almost as if director, Sean Durkin, took all of the best techniques from other sports films and made something greater than the total of its parts. Sublime stuff.

The first hour is sheer exhilaration, steaming along at a rollicking pace and begins quickly to reveal itself as a work of superior quality. There is a fantastic steadicam sequence shot in the evening dusk at the Sportatorium, the likes of which you see all too rarely these days. You truly feel like you're there and I defy anyone on planet earth not to get riled up by the montage featuring Rush's "Tom Sawyer". However, things quickly take a darker turn and this is a film very much made of two halves. Many other efforts in this genre explore the long-fabled rise and fall but this does so in a very specific manner, largely because the source material is all true. 

While the pace noticeably slows, the plot reveals itself to be a very interesting take on the sporting hero as a concept. There was me fully gearing up for some sort of Rocky-style showdown when in fact the film takes a turn in an altogether different direction. Because the truth of the matter is that few things in life are simple black and white. For every Rocky, there's a thousand people who don't strike gold. The common-held assumption is that these sorry losers spend the rest of their days propping up the end of some dead-end bar talking about the time they came this close to the big-time. This story is almost the opposite, particularly for Efron's character, Kevin. The eldest of the brothers. 

The first thing to mention outside of the sheer craft of Durkin in making this film is the acting. The entire cast shines. It so easily could of been a wiggy, nostalgic, mess (American Hustle, I'm looking at you) but it never veers into this territory. Brit Harris Dickinson is unrecognisable as David (the middle brother) and Jeremy Allen White is proving himself to be some spectacular hybrid of Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino. An absolutely ripped version of each, but still his star continues to rise. Lily James is great as always, Maura Tierney is solid and Holt McCallany towers as the dominant father figure in all of their lives. However, Zac Efron is an absolute revelation. Not a beat goes by where he isn't great. Despite every muscle threatening to rip his clothes apart in every scene, he somehow still comes across as a lost little boy a lot of the time. He's a simple man, and the tolls of fame and everything that go with it, just don't fit with the character he creates here. He continually feels out of step with the over-the-top madness of the world he's inhabited since a child. None of this works without his performance at the centre of it. It is the best of his career, by far. 

If there's one drawback to the film, it's the fact that - in being as true as you can to the real story - it feels like there is just too much to fit into a 2 hour film. The family history is so deep that you could probably turn it into a 4 season TV series. Because of this there is somewhat the sense of being beaten over the head with one massive plot point after another. To further illustrate this point, I have since found out that there was another brother - left out entirely for exactly this reason. Also, the quality of the first hour is so high that it almost inevitably can't keep pace with itself, not to mention the Ric Flair portrayal being a major misstep. That said, it was a true joy to sit down with a film where you could feel the love being poured into every frame. No detail has been left unspared and the performances are absolutely superb. I cried. A lot. And I'm not ashamed to admit it. Highly worth the effort. 

★★★★☆

JB.