Film Review - The Iron Claw (2024)

The Iron Claw is written and directed by Sean Durkin and stars Zac Efron as Kevin Von Erich a member of the famous Von Erich wrestling family who are pushed by their father (Holt McCallany) to win the world title that eluded him, but Kevin and his brothers (Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson and Stanley Simons) will find it tough to do right by each other and their dominating father.

The Iron Claw is a movie I have mixed feeings about but I will say firstly that this is a well made movie, Durkin does a good job in the directors chair in terms of both the dramatic scenes and the wrestling scenes and both work very well both edited together and on their own and the film does have some moving moments in it especially in the second half of the film.

Also the film has a lot of great performances, Efron is most excellent and had it not been for a competitive Best Actor race at the Academy Awards he most certainly would’ve been nominated and it would’ve been a good pick as both physically and dramatically he anchors the film very well, Allen White and Dickinson are very good also as 2 of his brothers while Simons was good but not as good, McCallany is very good also as the Von Erich father who pushes his boys to breaking point and beyond while Lily James and Maura Tierney are solid as the wives who more often than not have to deal with the adversaries the men in their life face and rarely talk to them about.

But at over 2 hours I felt this movie was too long especially towards the end and as the film goes on I felt that it got more and more grim and downbeat and I didn’t find myself enjoying the film as much, I get that some families have tragedies but this just felt repetitive in that respect and after a while I didn’t really find myself all that invested in the suffering and crying and inability of anyone to actually talk to each other and say what they should say.

And so that was the Iron Claw and its well made, has moving moments and good performances but it didn’t work as well for me as others, 2 and a half out of 5.