Jump to content

Iron Claw - Von Erich movie -Jeremy Allan White, Zac Efron


Mac8111

Recommended Posts

On 3/11/2024 at 11:37 AM, 'stache said:

Watched last night. I grew up watching wrestling as a kid in the 90's, so this family was before my time, and I knew nothing about the story. I enjoyed the film, but echo some of the comments. Efron looks more like the Incredible Hulk and seeing pictures of Kevin in real life its just very different and his level of bulk for the film seems really unnecessary. I also never got from the film that they were truly national celebrities, because I only ever knew WWF/WWE and WCW, never saw or recall the Von Erich's during that era, and the film doesn't seem to convey that the circuit they ran was also big time, if sort of feels like a local circuit. Even when Ric Flair was part of the story I couldn't tell if it was big time Flair or as an up and comer on the smaller circuits. On that note, totally agree that the Flair actor was terrible. It's also bizarre to me that they never really dug into the story lines and how the family had to position itself to make it big and fight for the World Championship, or who was supposed to win or lose in those fights. It's like their toeing the line between they have to earn it like traditional sports and sort of dancing around the fact that it's all choreographed. Like when Kevin goes super claw on Flair, it comes off as genuine anger and nonscripted, but Flair comes in and implies that it was part of the script, which makes sense, because even in the 90s the contenders often would come close enough to winning and then lose by disqualification as part of the story. The line between characters, choreography, and competition is just really blurred and confusing in context. It seems that the dad would be negotiating story lines so one of the kids becomes champ but you only ever see him angry that they have to fight so hard to get there. A few scenes that I recall acknowledge it, like Fritz telling David that he's great at working the mic, but the true nature of the sport seems lost. The best performance in my opinion was the actor who played Fritz, I really wanted Kevin to finish that bastard off at the end. 

Lobo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just watched this today on a flight from ATL to Seattle. Like posted above, the Tom Sawyer song brought back tons of memories of my youth watching the Von Erichs and also local wrestling from the Hirsch Colosseum in Shreveport on tv.
I enjoyed the movie for what it was able to deliver in the amount of time. Would like to see a mini-series too.

Caught it on a recent flight too. Didn’t know much about the story or the tragedy so didn’t expect it to be so sad but it was really well done. I thought Holt and Mara stole the show.

The tiny low res screen on the plane added to the feel.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I heard a review that made a great point about the Ric Flair part.

Movies about real life subjects tend to make the movie version so much more glamorous and exciting than the real thing. Think Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison in JFK, Burt and Dolly as the leads of Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Liam Neeson as Oscar Schindler, Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, etc.

But even Hollywood just can’t improve upon the real Nature Boy. Flair is such a larger than life figure (especially in his heyday of the mid-late-80’s) that anyone they got to play him would be a pale imitation who looks small by comparison. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...