The Iron Claw saves movies, kinda
I took most of January off for vacation (from blogging) and February and March just really sucked for movies. At least the type of movies I like anyway. Most of the 1st quarter was filled with crappy action movies and other really, really small movies I couldn’t care less for. I couldn’t even sit through the damn trailer for Argyre and Madame Web, much less watch any of them, so January (and quarter 1) lives up to it’s reputation for a dumbing ground for crap. Have you seen anything good lately?
Hollywood must have realized their January movies were garbage, so it churned out sequels and other crap we didn’t ask for, like ANOTHER terrible Universal adaptation this time called Lisa Frankenstein and some other smaller movies I missed completely or werent even in my town. The only saving grace was a Bob Marley movie nobody talked about for very long, and then I saw the Iron Claw, which granted was released weeks beforehand, and it was getting a lot of buzz by the time my lazy behind got around to seeing it. I came out of the theatre thinking: that was it? That was the best you could do with the greatest wrestling family ever? I was in deep January/February movie depression. I think my first impression was a little harsh (what me?) and it’s much better than I give it credit for.
I was really annoyed at the state of movies by the time January was over. There was nothing coming out I wanted to watch. There’s still nothing coming out worth a darn. Sometimes I feel obligated to see the latest horror movies because that’s what I turned this blog into but there’s no good horror movies in the near future, either. The genre is littered with superficial crap, from Abigail to The First Omen, I can’t even stand hearing about them. I mean, didn’t we already get three Omen sequels? There’s a tarot card movie coming out? Are you for real? The Iron Claw was my first chance to see something I was interested in, and it had a unique subject matter that’s not trodden all over by sequel, remake Hollywood.
The Iron Claw is a pretty decent movie, albeit could have been much better with a tighter (and more dramatic) script. The first problem is that they cram about 20 years worth of Von Erich history into a two hour movie. I mean, movies about JFK or Johnny Cash have done the same thing, but some of those focus on critical moments or the early life of a famous person, in the case of Johnny Cash. The Iron Claw goes all out giving us the entire family history, including all the family deaths, all the trauma, and tries to cram in all the important events in between. It just doesn’t work. The family is made up of five Von Erich brothers, including one which doesn’t even appear in the movie. The main character (most of the time) is Kevin Von Erich, played by Zac Efron and he does a good job, but he’s just not dramatic enough in these trying moments. It takes a whole two hours before he boils over and finally attacks (literally) his father over his frustrations, but maybe that’s how the real Kevin is: just an even-keel, level-headed guy and that’s it. Most of the side characters are god-awful impersonations of wrestling legends, and none of the true Von Erich popularity comes through as clearly as you hear about in other documentaries. Many of the family details like Fritz building the family home, David’s divorce, the other brother Chris Von Erich, are simply not included.
Overall, this is just an average movie. The acting is pretty good for a sports movie, but Fritz Von Erich sometimes becomes a caricature of an old-school, domineering father, when the real life person was probably somewhere between domineering bastard and totally ineffectual. I disagree with the movie’s premise that Fritz’s nature led to some of the family suicides, and some press agree with me, such as in GQ review from February. The real Kevin Von Erich also agrees with this point. The movie follows around Kevin most of the time, which is good because Efron is the best actor in the cast, but none of the other Von Erich brothers seem to have families of their own or anyone else outside those they grew up with. There’s just too much to cover to make this whole story work. Still, it’s riveting and a good story as is, and ten times better than anything in January or February, which means The Iron Claw single-handedly SAVES the first quarter from becoming another dumping ground. It must have taken the cast a LOT of work to get into shape and become these famous people, and I appreciate the energy put into this movie to make it what it is.
