What a tragically pathetic family the Von Erichs are. While they attained some fame and recognition in their sports field, whatever they achieved during that short period came with a lot of pain and misery, Sean Durkin’s latest film “The Iron Claws” is often harrowing even as calmly and clinically examining how they rose to the top and then fell hard to the ground.

The story, which is set between the late 1970s and the early 1990s, mainly revolves around Kevin Von Erich (Zac Efron), the second-oldest son of Jack “Fritz” Von Erich (Hold McCallany). As shown from the prologue scene, Fritz was once a promising professional wrestler, and he has driven his four sons into sports in one way or another while running his own professional wrestling business. While Kevin and his older brother David (Harris Dickinson) are already working as professional wrestlers, his younger brother Kerry (Jeremy Allen White) becomes an university athlete, and Mike (Stanley Simons), the youngest one in the bunch, shows some potential even though he is more interested in playing music.

Fritz initially tries to promote Kevin more, and Kevin is surely willing to prove himself more to his stern father. However, his important match for attaining the WWE championship turns out to be not as successful as they hoped, and Fritz subsequently recruits Kerry, who has been quite frustrated after he and many other American athletes cannot go to the 1980 Moscow Olympics due to a political reason involved with the Afghanistan War.

Once Kerry joins his two older brothers, it seems that they and their father will finally be closer to what their father has hoped for. After they become a lot more successful than before, David is chosen as the one going for the WWE championship, and Kevin does not mind this at all despite some disappointment, but there unexpectedly comes a devastating incident not long after he marries a young woman named Pam (Lily James).  

After that point, the mood becomes moody and disturbing as several other unfortunate incidents happen upon the Von Erichs. Kevin and several other family members certainly come to struggle a lot with the resulting shock and grief, but they do not get much help or support from Fritz, who is your average macho dude who does not allow himself and his sons to be emotional at all. Still occupied with making any of his sons gain that champion title someday, he pushes Kevin and his other sons harder than before, and they must obey him as enduring his constantly disapproving stare.

Although he begins to sense more of what is wrong with him and his brothers, Kevin still finds himself quite helpless under the toxic male influence from his father. Unlike his brothers, he has the wife willing to stand by him for more emotional support at least, but Pam eventually becomes quite frustrated with how her husband often fails to open himself more to her.

Considering his two previous films, Durkin is certainly no stranger to toxic personal relationships. His first feature film “Martha Marcy May Marlene” (2011) is about a young woman struggling to recover from the virulent influence of a charismatic cult leader she unfortunately got involved with. His next film “The Nest” (2020) observes one plain family gradually getting angry and frustrated with its patriarch’s another irresponsible financial plan, and you may see some parallel between the family in that film and the Von Erichs.          

You will probably be disappointed to see that the movie presents a number of wrestling scenes without much thrill or excitement on the whole. Instead, Durkin focuses more on what is being exchanged among Kevin and several other main characters, and their growing pain and frustration become palpable to us even when they do not express much on the surface. We are not so surprised when Kevin finally decides that enough is enough, and it is poignant to see when he is later reminded that it is really okay to show more emotion to the people close to him.

Durkin’s screenplay stumbles more than once as hurriedly moving from one incident to another during its second half (It also omits another son in the Von Erichs, by the way), and it has a little too many characters to juggle during its 132-minute running time. As a result, some of its main cast members are often under-utilized to our dissatisfaction, but they all give solid performances on the whole. Zach Efron surely tries a lot here for distancing himself from his usual image as much as possible, and his strong acting holds the ground to the end. While they are often limited by their underwritten characters, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, Stanley Simons click well along with Efron, and they and Efron are always believable as brothers who have really been close to each other for years. Although they are stuck with their respective thankless supporting parts, Lily Collins and Maura Tierney hold each own small place well, and the special mention goes to Holt McCallany, who does a fabulous job of embodying toxic patriarchy and masculinity.

Overall, “The Iron Claw” is another interesting work from Durkin even though it is less successful compared to his two previous films. I wonder whether it could be a richer and more complex human story if it were a TV miniseries instead, but it is still fairly engaging for Durkin’s competent direction and several good performances, and that is enough for recommendation in my trivial opinion.