The Iron Claw movie review: A haunting ‘reveal’ about obsessive parenting

Updated On: 09 February, 2024 05:45 PM IST | Los Angeles | Johnson Thomas

This true story about Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s, is a biopic with a difference

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The Iron Claw movie review

Film: The Iron Claw
Cast: Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, Maura Tierney, Stanley Simons, Holt McCallany, Lily James, Cazzey Louis Cereghino
Director: Sean Durkin
Rating: 3.5/5
Runtime: 132 min

This true story about Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s, is a biopic with a difference. Through tragedy and triumph, under the shadow of their domineering father and coach (who could in today’s terms be labeled abusive), we get to see the glaring obsessive parenting mistakes that brought about the downfall of the family that was once considered royalty in professional wrestling circles. They were the wrestling family that kicked off what is now the money-spinning world of the professional wrestling dynasty. It’s another thing that those mistakes are couched in words like ‘cursed’ etc., the normal panacea for people who choose not to separate the woods from the trees. They were the superstars saddled with one of the darkest, bizarre curses in sporting history. Surely, it’s truly a curse when an abuser disguises his abuse as love...isn`t it?

This is a deeply devastating tragedy told with the least bit of fuss. The camera invades the Von Erich household as the brothers attempt to seek larger-than-life immortality, on the biggest stage in sports, egged on by their cold and focused father who seeks to blind himself to the tragic toll his family is having to weather because of it. The four brothers who were forced to live, breathe, and eat wrestling, have to compete with each other to win their tough-talking Dad’s approval and their overly religious Mom, Doris (Maura Tierney) would just acquiesce to whatever the Dad decided. Dad Fritz (Holt McCallany) desperately wanted to win the World Wrestling title but couldn’t. He was the original Iron Claw in wrestling circles. The titular Black and white montage has him brandishing his famed weapon against opponents and leaving them devastated and bleeding within the four corners of the ring. So getting his sons to follow in his footsteps despite their abilities in other areas, appears to be the expected thing.

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