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A24's 'Iron Claw' - Von Erich Biopic


SoberChef

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  • 1 month later...

A lot of people already have seen it, while the embargo is still up (not sure when it will be lifted) here are a couple out of the theater reactions:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 Sorry but I am SO anxious to see this film, just need to share my excitement as I find myself thinking about this film DAILY since I saw the trailer.

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  • 4 weeks later...

WHAT. A. FILM! I'm still reeling from my watching experience yesterday. Went with two good friends of mine who have maybe a bare bones knowledge of anything wrestling, yet they connected to this so well. Astonishingly harrowing at times to be sure, and I now get why they opted out of having one brother further showcased because ... well just be sure to take your SSRI's before going into this flick. I did my best but I was a sobbing freaking mess (with VERY good reason considering the what/how of a certain scene plays out.) All fucking heart this one. Legitimately, this is a family picture first, that happens to have wrestling as the background.

 

Also, yeah that Flair cosplayer is cringe AF!

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Fantastic movie, one of the best ensembles of the year. I was only vaguely familiar with the Von Erich family before seeing it, so I was braced for tragedy but didn’t know the specifics. The last 15 minutes or so had me pretty weepy, but thankfully there were some happy tears in there as well. 
 

Spoiler

It was a beautiful note to end on that Kevin did get to fulfill his dream of having a ranch and having his whole family live there, it just had to be a new family that he started, not his brothers. 


And as someone who mostly knows wrestling from the Mountain Goats album Beat the Champ, I was excited to see Chavo Guerrero Jr. in the credits.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 5 months later...

I finally watched this - this was a pretty good movie! I don't know that I'd agree with others here that it was a fantastic movie, I'd give it a good 7.5/10. The first hour is incredibly compelling - I would definitely call that part a great movie, but the second hour they start speeding through events too fast for me to really care about what was happening. Anything with Efron, even in the second half, is well done, but the movie never really gives you any context as to why the other brothers make a lot of the decisions they do. The movie obviously hints at the pressure these kids face under their stern father but there's no sign of extreme abuse on screen or anything yet they turn to drugs and riding motorcycles at night without protective gear and commit suicide without really getting us into the brothers' heads as to how they got to those places mentally. Obviously the movie can't do that, as it doesn't have time, but as a result the second half of the movie comes off like a CliffNotes version of events for everyone except Efron. 

 

That being said, the movie is handsomely made throughout regardless, the acting by everyone is uniformly excellent (nice to see Holt McCallany get a meaty role) and the period setting with inserted live footage of wrestling from the era was on point. There's one scene in particular where Efron lands on the concrete outside the ring on his back during a match that had me on the edge of my seat that makes the whole movie worth it. 

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35 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

I finally watched this - this was a pretty good movie! I don't know that I'd agree with others here that it was a fantastic movie, I'd give it a good 7.5/10. The first hour is incredibly compelling - I would definitely call that part a great movie, but the second hour they start speeding through events too fast for me to really care about what was happening. Anything with Efron, even in the second half, is well done, but the movie never really gives you any context as to why the other brothers make a lot of the decisions they do. The movie obviously hints at the pressure these kids face under their stern father but there's no sign of extreme abuse on screen or anything yet they turn to drugs and riding motorcycles at night without protective gear and commit suicide without really getting us into the brothers' heads as to how they got to those places mentally. Obviously the movie can't do that, as it doesn't have time, but as a result the second half of the movie comes off like a CliffNotes version of events for everyone except Efron. 

 

That being said, the movie is handsomely made throughout regardless, the acting by everyone is uniformly excellent (nice to see Holt McCallany get a meaty role) and the period setting with inserted live footage of wrestling from the era was on point. There's one scene in particular where Efron lands on the concrete outside the ring on his back during a match that had me on the edge of my seat that makes the whole movie worth it. 


But how did you feel about that Ric Flair impersonation?

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2 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

But how did you feel about that Ric Flair impersonation?

 

That may have been the low point of the film for me. And it should be an easy impersonation compared to other real life people. Fortunately it was brief but not sure how you mess that up unless the movie was trying to troll Ric Flair. :p 

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1 hour ago, Greatoneshere said:

but as a result the second half of the movie comes off like a CliffNotes version of events for everyone except Efron. 

 

Exactly this! I think most of the brothers get kinda shafted by making them very interesting and then...kinda dropping the ball with their conclusion. Still worth a watch, I think we felt very similarly.

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12 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Exactly this! I think most of the brothers get kinda shafted by making them very interesting and then...kinda dropping the ball with their conclusion. Still worth a watch, I think we felt very similarly.

 

Yes, I completely agree, that was the biggest downside was he made them interesting! Then they just go through the motions of the terrible stuff in their lives by comparison. Maybe a longer movie would have helped their stories out. I definitely wanted to learn more by the end of the movie. I'd say the worst offender is the brother who is into playing music. After what happens to the other brother in the motorcycle accident he starts wrestling but there is no scene showing how they convinced a person who was way more into music and with no interest in wrestling just starts wrestling. I get that was part of the point since he receives an injury due to inexperience but we don't get inside his head about much of it.

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There was a quote, I think from the writer/director, where they chose to cut out one brother because they had already reached max levels of tragedy.  
 

And I agree that at a certain point you can really feel them rushing through plot points without a lot of context, I’ll just say it didn’t bother me here nearly as much as it did in Napoleon. :p

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10 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

And I agree that at a certain point you can really feel them rushing through plot points without a lot of context, I’ll just say it didn’t bother me here nearly as much as it did in Napoleon. :p

 

Well the Napoleon director's cut is definitely coming, the MPAA recently rated it so maybe that'll help.

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