Rating: R | Runtime: 132 minutes
Release Date: December 22nd, 2023 (USA)
Studio: A24
Director(s): Sean Durkin
Writer(s): Sean Durkin

I used to be a brother.

It’s just too much for a two-hour movie. Writer/director Sean Durkin had to literally erase one of the Von Erich brothers from history because adding another tragic demise (especially one so close to that of a different brother) would be too redundant to the pacing of the film. The dominoes fall so quickly that it’s also easy to forget these are grown men with wives and families and not just young boys going to war in the ring for Dad. Because giving any of them three-dimensions besides Kevin (Zac Efron) would add five more hours.

With all that being said, however, The Iron Claw proves about as effective as it could due to Durkin’s juggling act between history and narrative propulsion. The idea is to center Kevin (for obvious reasons). He’s the supposed heir to the “Iron Claw” throne built by his toxically domineering father Fritz (Holt McCallany) who’s the size of a house with an even bigger heart. As Doris’ (Maura Tierney) eldest surviving son, Kevin becomes a sort of secondary father figure to his brothers. The compassionate ear to oppose their father’s (doubling as employer) demands.

We understand this dynamic pretty early on thanks to youngest (because Chris is removed) brother Mike (Stanley Simons). He plays the guitar and skips workout sessions. He enjoys watching Kevin and David (Harris Dickinson) wrestle, but wants nothing to do with it himself—a fact his older brother sees and appreciates despite Dad’s refusal. But Kevin doesn’t really have a say. No one does besides Fritz and even he pretends he doesn’t if the words he should say don’t help reach his goal of NWA supremacy. Ask either parent to open their eyes and see what’s really happening and they shrug while saying, “You boys work it out yourselves.”

It’s a mantra Kevin takes to heart. One that forces him to feel guilt when bodies start falling. And it’s not because he finds love (Lily James’ Pam) to ground him (I mean, it is since the others don’t get their real-life relationships on-screen). It’s because he sees the truth while also embracing his role. So, when David replaces him at the top of the pecking order, Kevin gets mad at the situation rather than the man. When Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) does the same, rinse and repeat. Where those more polished public speakers crave the limelight, Kevin simply wants familial success. He feels responsible for it … as well as the defeats.

Efron is very good in the role even if his character is caught in a cycle that demands he grieve, rage, and reset over and over again. If not for McCallany and Tierney’s dedication to blindly absolving themselves of their own complicity, the drama would become even more repetitive than it already does thanks to the truncated length in which it tries to give depth to such a sprawling series of unfortunate events sparked by drugs, ambition, and the warped desire to make Daddy proud. Because even though we feel each death through Kevin’s pain, we never get to truly sit with it before the next one falls.

So, think of this as a good distillation of a much larger tale. Durkin whets our appetite for the example of legacy’s insidious hold on a family’s pursuit of greatness at the cost of their happiness that exists if someone could do it justice in a miniseries that allows each brother his own episode to detail the specific ways in which the pressure became too much to bear. As it is now, The Iron Claw is an abridged depiction of a “curse” as self-fulfilling prophecy rather than a dissection of that curse’s origins. It’s enough to move audiences, showcase Efron, and ignite Google searches to discover everything left out.

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(L-R) Holt McCallany, Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Stanley Simons, Harris Dickinson in THE IRON CLAW. Photo by Brian Roedel; courtesy of A24.