The Iron Claw is established right at the beginning of the movie that shares its name. It is a wrestling move, apparently devised by one Fritz Von Erich (Holt McCallany) that involves grabbing an opponent by the face and thereby subduing them. But it is also the clear metaphor for how he forces his own obsessions onto his sons to disastrous results. At some point in this film, every one of his adult children follows in his footsteps, with the end goal of winning the World Heavyweight Championship Fritz feels was denied him, and for none of them is it entirely of their own will.
It’s the kind of story that you find hard to believe is actually real, and while certain points are fudged (there was actually a fifth wrestling brother, a fair bit younger than the rest, entirely cut from the film), the broad strokes of the story of this highly competitive, highly unfortunate family appear to be true. The Texas Von Erichs were a major force of the wrestling world in the 1970s and 80s, managed by their former wrestler father and plagued by several horrible circumstances attributed to some nebulous family curse. The Iron Claw names that curse however, even as it doesn’t reckon with it explicitly as much as it ought to.
Stressed heavily though, and from early on, is the bond of these brothers. Most of the film is told from the perspective of the eldest -though second-eldest in his mind due to the death of one brother Jack when they were very little- Kevin (Zac Efron). At the start he is the second-favourite of their father’s, who keeps no secret of how he ranks them due to their relative athletic successes. In spite of the toxic competitiveness this might encourage, the boys are all very close. There’s David (Harris Dickinson) who comes into wrestling following Kevin and is a much better promoter, Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) a discus thrower pressured into wrestling after the 1980 Olympics boycott shatters his dream, and Michael (Stanley Simons), the youngest who has no interest in sports and would much rather pursue music. But ambitions outside of wrestling don’t count for much in that family.
Director Sean Durkin (of Martha Marcy May Marlene) introduces the brothers as appendages of their father, whose own career is glimpsed first in an opening flashback scene that in both texture and style is reminiscent of Raging Bull, to get across the point early what kind of a figure this man is and the shadow he casts even in gentler moments over his dutiful offspring. And he can often seem like a rather ordinary country patriarch, not to diminish the still prevalent toxic masculinity in every pore of his character -such as downplaying his early music ambitions and insisting that his sons never cry, even under tragic circumstances. But that obsessiveness always has a way of creeping up, even in dark or inappropriate moments. It was smart to cast him as the villain of the piece, though it may have been smarter to centre his character, the most warped and fascinating of the Von Erich clan. McCallany also gives by a margin the strongest performance of the film, a gruff and foreboding presence, unrelenting no matter how bleak or dire things get for his sons.
At the same time the choice to focus on the brothers makes a lot of sense for the emotional angle, especially given the circumstances if you know the story of the Von Erichs. But the movie doesn’t lean into that initially, it develops their closeness alongside the genuine thrill they find in their sport, especially when competing together. Yet in illustrating this alongside a gradual shifting in their father’s approval, such as when he clearly starts giving preferential treatment to David over Kevin, it’s unusual how little we see of any strain on the relationships -beyond little visual hints of Kevin being slightly resentful towards his father at being passed over. And while there is some cognizance, certainly on Kevin’s part, of how their father is moulding them, they don’t much articulate it or reckon with their lives and choices in any kind of critical manner.
Durkin seems somewhat torn between honouring and elevating the wrestling careers of these men and presenting it as a kind of prison for them. Between seeing them as successful, admirable and highly disciplined athletes and grotesque hulks of muscle precisely built for a preordained fate. Certainly there is something unnatural to their physiques, especially on Efron and White, and the ways in which their bodies are shot in the ring and in relation to each other. But nothing is made of this. There is a genuinely quite different movie to be found here to the typical sports biography, but Durkin isn’t quite willing to draw it out, perhaps asserting the story itself is interesting and unique enough in its own right.
Which is fair -there’s nothing quite matching the distinct grimness of the true Von Erich story as it is told here. That story alone is fairly compelling and Durkin tells it effectively if not particularly originally. Still there are several refreshingly evocative moments –a layering effect in one of the montages to better communicate the weight of these brothers not only pushing to live up to their father’s reputation but each other’s. It succeeds on several emotional beats –the last time all four are together, the curious emptiness of a major triumph, a vision of a metaphysical reunion. And though more of this may be attributable to details in the script or direction, the actors are modestly equipped –especially White. In all the overt masculinity though, little care is given to the women characters: Lily James as Kevin’s love interest Pam and Maura Tierney as mother Doris –the latter especially being a very inactive force, and the most blind to the abuses of her husband.
After its use in the opening scene, the Iron Claw doesn’t reappear much in the movie, either in literal or thematic terms –it’s most appropriate culmination on both these points would have come off quite silly, so I understand the restraint. As much as without the ramifications of the Claw are still clear, there is a sense of temperament at the movie’s end. I think Durkin had the option of spotlighting a story of tragedy or a story of toxic obsession, and chose the former for quite rational reasons despite being better at the latter. The Iron Claw is a decent film, based on a genuinely fascinating true family, straight and somewhat unambitious, but never uninteresting. I only wish the far stronger movie, the one with more radical implications that Durkin himself seems to acknowledge, had come to fruition in its place.
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