The Iron Claw: Triumph and Defeats of a WWE HOF Family

The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Erich_family, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. Through tragedy and triumph, under the shadow of their domineering father and coach, the brothers seek larger-than-life immortality on the biggest stage in sports.

Review:

In The Iron Claw, a high tragedy melodrama about an American wrestling family dynasty, the weirdest and best scenes are the ones involving the family dynamics. Early on, when the father (Holt McCallany) starts listing the order of his favorite sons while they’re slamming down breakfast, and then introduces the sucker punch, that the rankings can always change. It came as a shock to me, but onscreen it’s treated as another ho-hum dinner in the Von Erich household.

That creepy comic tone is the one constant in this inconstant film. This is a semi-true story about sons following the father’s ambitions and achieving more tragedy than victory. The title refers to their preferred wrestling move, a savage death lock claw on an opponent’s face.

The tragic facts requires that a middle brother, Kevin (Zac Efron) be the way into the story. He functions as the through line, narrator, and in the final stretch, an uneasy agent of change, that leaves ambition and failed championship dreams behind. For a taciturn but tight knitted family, its very destruction forces the survivors to open up, settle for living with tragic memories, lost connections and a semi idealized big ranch existence.

The director, Sean Durkin sketches this family with a good deal of flair. He takes advantage of the razor sharp script and dialogue, the telescoping production design filled with telling details- not only the abundant trophies, but the many crucifixes, the family’s gun collection. They all are details that show the brothers’ warmth and affection for and towards each other, their desire to extend that into the future despite all the tragedy. They never want to leave each other behind. Tragically they must. It’s only Kevin who gets the opportunity to leave his abusive and toxic father at the end, to live his own dreams beyond parental ambition, form a loving, caring, understanding family of his own.

Eventually the comic tone disappears as the tragedies, the ambition of the father are imposed on the sons, the sons’ struggles become unbearable and self deflating, and defeat both mortal, and wrestling wise rears its ugly head. The sons love for their father is obsessive and complicated, ultimately disastrous. Kevin is left bouncing off ring ropes, his outstretched body a metaphor for his yearning, his retreat into an existential fog. He remains opaque to himself and the audience.

Eventually, Durkin pulls away, the story’s tragedy being too hard for him to depict in an honest emotional way. He’s much better with the light rather than the dark. He wants to be the sixth son, but knows he can’t, so he resolves to picture the joy, camaraderie fully and shadow everything beyond that. The iron claw of corrosive patriarchy, as it were, and of emotional repression and misplaced ambition proves more than he wants to grapple with. Durkin yearns for a happy ending that the real story doesn’t grant.