The Iron Claw (film)
The Iron Claw is a 2023 biographical sports drama film written and directed by Sean Durkin about the Von Erichs, a family of professional wrestlers who are "cursed" by tragedy.However, Fritz is disappointed that Kevin took a long time to get up after taking a vertical suplex directly on concrete but is delighted by David displaying a natural talent for showmanship while cutting a promo.A textual epilogue reveals that the Von Erichs were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2009 and that Kevin and Pam are still married and have bought a ranch in Hawaii, where their large family lives to this day, including their four children and thirteen grandchildren.One month later, McCallany and James were cast,[10] and Juliette Howell, Angus Lamont, Maura Tierney, Tessa Ross, Derrin Schlesinger, and Harrison Huffman were confirmed as producers.[32] In the United States and Canada, The Iron Claw was released alongside Migration, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and Anyone but You, and was projected to gross around $6 million from 2,774 theaters in its four-day opening weekend.The website's consensus reads: "Powerfully acted and profoundly sad, The Iron Claw honors its fact-based story with a dramatization whose compassionate exploration of family ties is just as hard-hitting as its action in the wrestling ring.[34] The New Yorker's Richard Brody wrote The Iron Claw "is as exuberant as it is mournful, and the high spirits of performance and achievement are inseparable from the price that they exact".[39] Adam Nayman of The Ringer called it "a sports movie with genuine existential heft",[40] and The Atlantic's David Sims commented "it is the kind of big, weepy, macho film that just doesn’t get made much anymore, a soaring power ballad that should prompt a lot of loud sniffling in the theater."[41] David Fear of Rolling Stone noted the film establishes from the outset that "the physical violence in the ring will be nothing compared to the psychological carnage happening outside of it"."[42][46] David Sims commented, "To wrestling nerds, the Von Erichs have a titanic legacy, and Durkin does his best to represent that by exploring the sport's crunchy, amateurish pre-corporate age, when regional live events were the big moneymakers and television was largely ignored.[42] Several critics discussed the film's tendency to focus on the tragic, and expressed that character detail and depth are unfortunately sacrificed in favor of covering more narrative ground.[25][45][46][47] Allison Willmore of Vulture wrote, "In streamlining their story to emphasize the tragedies that accrue as time goes on, the film risks reducing its characters into martyrs who suffer and die on behalf of toxic masculinity."[48] The New York Times' Manohla Dargis opined: "The iron claw of corrosive patriarchy, as it were, and of emotional repression and misplaced ambition proves more than [Durkin] wants to grapple with."[45] Writing for Texas Monthly, Sean O'Neal said, "The film sparks most in those early scenes set against the nostalgic neon glow of the eighties Dallas skyline, when the Von Erichs—and the city that surrounded them—seemed invincible and electric.