Movie Review The Iron Claw

The Iron Claw (2023) 

Directed by Sean Durkin

Written by Sean Durkin

Starring Zac Efron, Holt McCallany, Harris Dickinson, Jeremy Allen White, Lily James, Maura Tierney 

Release Date December 22nd, 2023 

Published ?

Instead of reviewing what I think is a very bad movie, The Iron Claw, I am going to make a list of the many things the movie gets wrong combined with a list of things the film omitted that might have made the film better. As a wrestling fan, I am remarkably familiar with the controversies, the tragedies, and the triumphs of the Von Erich family. The misery porn that director Sean Durkin is engaged in in The Iron Claw is nothing compared to the real life tragedies and controversies that the Von Erich family were part of from the late 1970s and into the early 1990s. 

What The Iron Claw gets wrong: Spoilers ahead, it's based on a true story, but the movie fictionalizes so much that, I guess, this stuff qualifies as spoilers. 

The Timeline 

The Iron Claw proceeds essentially from 1980 when Kevin Von Erich, played by Zac Efron, met and married his wife, Pam, played by Lily James. While at Kevin's wedding, we see Kevin's brother, David, played by Harris Dickinson fall ill. He's vomiting blood and Kevin advises David not to take a trip to Japan the following week, advising David to get some rest first. David assures Kevin he will be fine and he goes on the trip to Japan. Cut to, Fritz Von Erich alone at his kitchen table, distraught. While on tour in Japan, David suffered from Enteritis and died in his hotel room. 

From Kevin Von Erich's marriage in 1980 to David's death from either Enteritis or a drug overdose, depending on whose story you believe, were four years. Four years in which David Von Erich had the biggest successes of his career. In 1980 he broke away from his father and traveled the country working in Florida, where he played a bad guy for a while, a rite of passage in the industry that would not have been afforded to him by his father. He also went to Missouri and was able to win the Missouri Heavyweight Championship, arguably the biggest solo honor of his short career. 

There appears to be little justification for compressing four years into one week and it only serves to remove the devastating emotional impact of David's death, which is reduced to a single scene of Fritz telling Kevin that David had died. Tell don't show is a plague on The Iron Claw as so many significant incidents in the lives and careers of the Von Erich's are either ignored completely or we are told that they happened offscreen. 

Kerry Von Erich's personal life 

In The Iron Claw you would assume that Kerry Von Erich was a lonely, drug addicted playboy whose only life was in the wrestling ring. That's partially true. But what The Iron Claw fails to tell you, I assume because they were cut for time, is that Kerry was married and had children. In the movie, Kerry's marriage and his children, including future pro wrestler Lacy Von Erich, are never mentioned and completely ignored. As Kerry spirals toward his tragic, far to young death by suicide, his brother asks him about some random woman that he'd brought home for the holidays. She was some woman he met on the road or something. He never asks about Kerry's wife or mentions his children as a reason for Kerry not to take his own life. 

More Timeline shenanigans 

If David's death happened a week after Kevin's marriage in 1981, then Kerry Von Erich won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and at the David Von Erich Parade of Champions event a little over a month and a half later. And, according to the timeline in The Iron Claw, Kerry went out and got very drunk and crashed his motorcycle and lost part of his leg that same night. Naturally, that didn't happen that way. Kerry won the title in 1984, a little over a month after David died that same year. Kerry didn't suffer his motorcycle accident and the amputation of the lower part of his right leg until 1986, long after he'd lost the NWA world title. 

The remarkable and tragic story of Kerry's motorcycle accident. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Triangle of Sadness

Triangle of Sadness (2022) 

Directed by Ruben Ostlund 

Written by Ruben Ostlund

Starring Woody Harrelson, Harris Dickinson, Charibi Dean, Zlatko Buric 

Release Date October 7th, 2022 

Published October 18th, 2022

I always feel like I am not one of the cool kids when I fail to love a movie that others have hailed as a masterpiece. That's unfortunately, how I feel about the Cannes Film Festival winner Triangle of Sadness. Triangle of Sadness is director Ruben Ostlund's latest examination of toxic privilege. After targeting gender roles in Force Majeure and the pretension of the art world in The Square, Ostlund's prime target this time is a group of very rich people aboard a cruise ship which sinks and leaves several very rich people at the mercy of the elements on a deserted island. I can see where the satire is but it never registers as funny for me. 

Is Triangle of Sadness supposed to be funny? I'm honestly not sure. I know I didn't laugh at any point in Triangle of Sadness though I was slightly amused by moments of it. So, if the point isn't humor, what is the point of Triangle of Sadness? Is it pouring puke and feces all over very rich people in a very rich person environment? That certainly does happen in Triangle of Sadness but I don't think it provides a point beyond how money can't protect you from choppy seas and bad seafood. 

The sight of an incredibly rich woman in agony as her dinner rockets from both her mouth and her backend is perhaps a shot at how money can't buy you a dignified end of your life. That's an idea, and one that is uniquely and gut churningly presented in Triangle of Sadness. Does the idea justify the shocking visual? That depends on your tolerance for bodily activities on the big screen. This happens to a character we don't know very well and can only assume is bad just because she is very rich and remarkably demanding in the few moments we do spend with her. 

There is no central character in Triangle of Sadness. Instead we have character types. Harris Dickinson plays a model on the edge of his career. Carl has had success and been the face of a brand for a time. That however, does nothing for him when he seeks to be the face of a new campaign. Now, he's just another handsome face in a handsome crowd. Carl is struggling and his struggle is reflected in his relationship with a successful runway model turned social media influencer, Yaya, played by Charibi Dean. 

On a date at a fancy and apparently expensive restaurant, Carl can't stop himself from getting into a semantic argument over who should be paying for dinner. Carl's annoyance is stemming from his insecurity both economically due to his seemingly flagging career and perceptivity, he's concerned about being a man who can't afford to pay for a fancy dinner. He couches this in the idea of male-female equality and how women want to be seen and treated as equals until the check arrives. 

Yaya, for her part, is having none of this conversation. She sees right through Carl's insecurity. It's not that she's a better person or smarter than Carl, rather, she's been rendered insensitive by never having had to struggle. Yaya is rich, beautiful and successful to the point that she has no idea how much money she has or when her credit card has reached its limit. The interaction between Carl and Yaya is interesting as a surface level critique of gender roles, privilege and masculine insecurity but the nagging argument lasts a little too long and doesn't have a real payoff leading to this plot petering out as it leads to the centerpiece of Triangle of Sadness, the yacht trip. 

The middle of Triangle of Sadness is about the notion of privilege, those who uphold and enable it, and those who are subject to it. We have Carl and Yaya whose privilege comes with the caveat that they must document their excess in order to remain in excess. Yaya's primary income comes not from her lucrative modeling career but rather as an influencer who wields clout to earn brand deals and must flaunt her privileges in order to remain privileged. It's an interesting dynamic but slightly undercooked in the execution. As with such modern satire, it too easily boils down to simplistic contempt for so-called influencers. 

The remaining rich vacationers are grotesque caricatures or clueless excessives who will have their privilege thrown back at them via Ostlund's vengeful seafood and toilets, as mentioned earlier. Again, if you lack a tolerance for such things being portrayed on screen, Triangle of Sadness is not for you. Ostlund goes all in on the puking, pooping, overflowing toilets and general chaotic grossness of a ship at sea with all things going wrong. I nearly quit watching the film at this point and it is a testament to my desire to experience Ostlund's complete vision that I did not simply walk away at this point. 

This section of the film also serves as an extended cameo for the most well known member of the cast. Woody Harrelson plays the captain of the yacht, a drunkard and a hardcore Marxist. When the Captain insists on holding his Captain's dinner on a night when the crew knows the seas will be choppy and illness inducing, it's this decision that leads to most everyone becoming violently ill. All save for the Captain who forgoes his dinner in favor of more booze. In drinking, the Captain is joined by a passenger and fellow drunkard, Dimitry (Zlatko Buric) who made his fortune in fertilizer, he is King Shit. Together, the two debate Marxist politics versus capitalism and subject the entire yacht to their debate via a loud speaker. 

Is it interesting? Yes, Woody Harrelson is a very compelling actor. That said, the deck is somewhat stacked in his favor as he debates Marxism with the Shit King, a Russian Oligarch on vacation with both his wife and his mistress at once. This sequence is interesting but it's not funny and it doesn't really strike any big chords. The Captain admits that his Marxist philosophy is undermined by his desire for the finer things in life and Dimitry admits that he's cut a lot corners and done a lot of shady things under the guise of capitalism and with an aim towards denouncing Marxism solely for the fact that it benefits him as a capitalist. Interesting but very surface level stuff. 

The final act of Triangle of Sadness occurs on a seemingly deserted island. The luxury yacht capsized after being attacked by unknown pirates and only several characters survived to make it to this island. With the survivors being Carl, Yaya, and several other millionaires who don't exactly have the kind of skills that translate to survival on a deserted island, leadership falls to a lowly maid named Abigail (Dolly De Leon). Because she is the only one capable of catching fish for dinner, starting a fire, and cooking, she has essentially seized the means of production and placed the ownership class in her employ. She decides who earns the right to eat and thus survive and if anyone displeases her, she can cut them off. 

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review: Darkest Minds

Darkest Minds (2018) 

Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson

Written by Chad Hodge

Starring Amandla Stenberg, Harris Dickinson, Mandy Moore, Bradley Whitford 

Release Date August 3rd, 2018

Published August 3rd, 2018

I had really hoped that the phase of young adult dystopian drama had passed after the series of Hunger Games knock-offs tried and failed at the box office. I had a deep and abiding hope that after Maze Runner: The Death Cure, still among the worst things I have seen at the movies in 2018, had flopped into theaters I would not have to suffer another overwrought, portentous piece of young adult post-apocalyptic nonsense for a few years.  

Sadly, it’s only been a few months since the pain of the most recent Maze Runner sequel began to subside and already this pathetic sub-genre is back on the big screen. Darkest Minds is the latest young adult flotsam to try and cash in on The Hunger Games in hopes of striking box office gold. Here’s hoping it fails as miserably as the rest as Darkest Minds doesn’t deserve success, it deserves to be buried in a cold wet grave. 

Darkest Minds wastes the talents of young Amandla Stenberg, Rue from The Hunger Games, as Ruby, a teenager with a dark secret, the power to manipulate people’s minds. As we are told via generic news footage, teenagers across the country woke up one morning with remarkable super-powers and their parents didn’t know what to do about them. The only thing anyone could think of was to round up the kids and put them in camps to be studied or killed.  

Some kids are super-smart, others have telekinesis powers and still others have the horrific power to make fire shoot from their eyes and mouths like a kid whose had too many Smoking Hot Cheetos. Ruby belongs to a dangerous group of kids given the distinction or Orange for their ability to manipulate the minds of anyone they come in contact with. Ruby can Jedi mind trick people into doing her bidding, if she can learn to control her gift. 

After escaping an internment camp where she was set to be eliminated after they discover the breadth of her powers, Ruby briefly goes on the run with a freedom fighter named Kate (Mandie Moore) but when she appears to have a partner who Ruby envisions as a bad guy, Ruby runs away and finds herself in a van with a group of fellow teens with super-powers. Liam (Harris Dickman) is the leader, he has telekinesis. Chubs (Skylan Brooks) has super-intelligence and Zu (Miya Cech) can turn electricity into a weapon. 

Together they will seek out a utopia headed up by a legend named the Slip Kid, nicknamed for his ability to get in and out of the camps after being repeatedly captured. Naturally, the utopia will not be all it’s cracked up to be and it will be up to our heroes to point the way toward real freedom. Or, at least, I assume what the plot of Darkest Minds is supposed to be; the film is far more clumsy in execution.

Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson makes the jump from animated features to live action with Darkest Minds and you can sense the dutiful approach to making this as if she were assigned a task and not given a creative opportunity. There is a quality of let’s just get this over with to every scene in the movie and the rushed sensibility comes through in the look of the movie and in the performances that stem from a director picking up a paycheck. 

Amandla Stenberg is giving the role of Ruby her full attention but you can sense here also a dutiful if not deeply committed approach. Everyone in Darkest Minds seems to just want to get through this so they can get on with their careers in more interesting movies that aren’t mandated by the whims of a studio marketing department. You can almost hear the gleeful cry of the marketing team as they chant “Hunger Games Meets The X-Men” over and over and over as they frenzy themselves toward believing they have a hit concept on their hands. 

Darkest Minds is little more than an elevator pitch brought to life and colored in with derivative characters and expository dialogue. It’s unlikely that anyone who made this movie cared about it beyond making sure it wasn’t a full-on, career killing embarrassment. That modest goal is achieved, everyone here can rest assured that what they’ve made isn’t a complete embarrassment, it’s competent and forgettable in the way that will help as these talented people move on and forget that they ever took part in this throwaway nonsense.