Rahim Mohamed: The Iron Claw wrestling drama may be the most woke movie of the year. I loved it

Like a good number of people who scribble about politics for a living, I also happen to be a massive fan of professional wrestling. I’ve been hooked on sports entertainment’s peculiar blend of athleticism, showmanship and storytelling ever since seeing Bret “The Hitman” Hart slap the sharpshooter on a bloodied “Stone Cold” Steve Austin as a preteen.

So when I was asked to pen a review of The Iron Claw, a new film based on the real life tribulations of wrestling’s Von Erich family, I could only respond with a hearty rendition of one of Stone Cold’s best known catchphrases: “ Oh, hell yeah! ” But I had no idea what I was actually getting myself into.

While the sprawling family saga offers no shortage of bodyslams — featuring a host of fun portrayals of wrestling icons like Ric Flair, Harley Race and the Fabulous Freebirds — The Iron Claw is, at its core, a thoughtful meditation on the crushing weight of hyper masculine gender norms and expectations; a brew known in some circles as “toxic masculinity.” It may, in fact, be the most quietly “woke” movie of the year.

Playing out in the early to mid 1980s, at the tail end of wrestling pre WWF/E territory days , The Iron Claw centres on Dallas based promoter Fritz Von Erich (played by veteran character actor Holt McCallany) and his brood of muscle bound sons. While Fritz insists, early in the film, that he “wouldn’t wish wrestling” on any of his children, all four sons end up passing through his promotion, World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW).

(A fifth son is revealed to have drowned as a child; a sixth, who died at his own hand, was written out of the film altogether.) (Warning: Spoilers ahead!) Fritz takes on the role of demanding and, at times, domineering family patriarch; regularly pitting his eager to please sons against one another.

In one of his first scenes on camera, he rattles off a ranking of the four adolescents at the family breakfast table, cautioning them that “the rankings can always change.” Fritz, an ex grappler himself, imparts a rugged masculinity on his sons, telling them repeatedly that if they were “the toughest, the strongest,” nothing could ever hurt them –— a cruel foreshadowing of the string of tragedies to come.

The film is mostly seen through the eyes of Kevin (Zac Efron), the oldest of the four boys. While he lacks the in ring star power of younger siblings David (Harris Dickinson) and Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), Kevin nevertheless bears the full brunt of keeping the family legacy alive. Kevin is also the most acutely aware, of the brothers, of the family’s “curse,” which he believes started when his father adopted the stage surname “Von Erich,” passing the cursed moniker down to his sons.

(The film omits the historical detail that it was legendary Alberta based “Stampede Wrestling” promoter Stu Hart who gave the family patriarch, né Jack Adkisson, the name “Fritz Von Erich,” booking him as one half of an evil Nazi tag team in the late 1950s.) Kevin watches helplessly as the family curse snaps up his doomed brothers one by one, all the while navigating his own complicated relationship with his father.

Fritz, who feels he never got his due in his own wrestling days, is obsessed with bringing the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) World Heavyweight Championship into the Von Erich family — a goal that consumes each of the three eldest brothers. In one of the film’s most cathartic sequences, Kevin blows his own shot at the title belt by getting himself disqualified against champion Ric Flair (Aaron Dean Eisenberg).

(Kevin traps Flair in the family’s patented submission hold, called “the iron claw,” and refuses to let go after the referee calls for a break.) Kevin eventually comes to the realization that the only way he can beat the Von Erich curse is by cutting ties with both his father and the family business.

In the film’s final act, we see Kevin leave his old life behind to tend to his own two young sons. In what’s perhaps the film’s single most encapsulating scene, Kevin apologizes to the boys for breaking down into tears while watching them play together, acknowledging that men aren’t supposed to cry.

“You can cry,” the boys reassure him. “We cry all the time.” (An end credit sequence reveals that Kevin, now 66, has continued to outrun the Von Erich curse, living happily today with his wife, four children and 11 grandchildren.) The Iron Claw is, to be sure, a very good movie, but it’s also one that may surprise many.

Canadian born writer and director Sean Durkin expertly weaves keen insights on family, siblinghood, gender roles and evolving notions of what it means to be “a man” into the fact based wrestling tragedy. This commentary is nuanced enough to give even the most red pilled “man’s man” pause for reflection.

And I can pretty much guarantee that Kevin won’t be the only grown man who’s reduced to tears by the time the credits roll — he certainly wasn’t at the screening I attended. National Post.