The Iron Claw

MOVIE #1,924 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 08.23.24 This is the rare “based on a true story” film that probably doesn’t embellish its bleak subject matter. Read about the real life saga of the Von Erichs professional wrestling family and you’ll find that is even more depressing. There was so much despair that writer-director Sean Durkin actually condensed the plight of ANOTHER Von Erich who committed suicide into an amalgamation of a single brother character. The bulk of this narrative predates my knowledge/brief fandom of pro wrestling by about a decade so the story was brand new to me. It’s a very good film that occasionally leans a little too heavy into melodrama (I’m thinking mostly about the scene where they meet their oldest bro who died as a child in heaven — where he is still a child — but even that sort of worked). Excellent looking (especially the wonderfully composed and shot in-ring action) with stellar performance abound: a high 8/10. I will definitely be checking out Durkin's other work soon.

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The Iron Claw is a 2023 biographical sports drama film written and directed by Sean Durkin about the Von Erichs, a family of professional wrestlers who are "cursed" by tragedy. The film depicts the struggles of wrestling company owner Fritz Von Erich's sons to achieve the success for which their father groomed them, from 1979 to the early 1990s. It was released on November 8, 2023.