It’s a challenge with which professional wrestling has grappled for decades. Call it the Rodney Dangerfield problem.
Despite the sport’s global success, despite its legion of loyal fans, and even despite the mainstream ascent of such names as Hulk Hogan, Dwayne Johnson and John Cena — now entertainment icons, all — it just can’t get any respect in certain quarters.
Blame it on the pre-determined nature of the outcomes of its matches. Blame it on its carefully curated backstage soap operas. Blame it on whatever else you will. The fact remains: As professional sports go, pro wrestling and its undeniably athletic practitioners have always struggled for legitimacy alongside “real” pro sports.
But now, after all these years, Hollywood might be taking the wrestling world seriously for what it does when it is at its best: generate truly absorbing storylines, both inside the ring and outside of it.
Flamboyance and fame
One recent example of the filmmaking industry’s ring revelation: Amazon MGM Studios’ “Cassandro,” about Mexican wrestler Saúl Armendáriz, who achieved success in the 1980s as an “exotico,” the name given to flamboyant, cross-dressing lucha libre grapplers.
As timely as it is, that film can be fairly criticized for its all-over-the-place script. There’s no questioning, however, the charming performance of Gael Garcia Bernal in the title role, which alone makes “Cassandro” a movie worth rooting for.
The bigger title, though — and the one that has the wrestling world leaning forward and paying attention — is “The Iron Claw,” a Baton Rouge-shot biopic about the staggeringly tragic story of the Von Erich family.
If you know anything about wrestling, particularly wrestling of the 1980s, you’ve heard of the “cursed” Von Erichs — father Fritz, the originator of the signature head-crushing move after which “The Iron Claw” film gets its title, and his five wrestling sons, Kevin, David, Kerry, Mike and Chris.
Of the five Von Erich boys, only one, Kevin, would live past the age of 33.
An ode to pain
Needless to say, “The Iron Claw” is not a happy movie. It is not a feel-good film. It is not uplifting and only marginally inspiring — and even then only as an ode to the amount of pain the human heart can endure.
But in the sensitive hands of writer-director Sean Durkin (“Martha Marcy May Marlene”), it is also a well-told, smartly crafted story that can stake a realistic claim to being one of the more moving and compelling sports dramas in recent memory.
That’s no small thing, given the emotional weight of the material. Like the Von Erichs’ family history, “The Iron Claw” consists largely of a series of in-the-ring triumphs interspersed with repeated crushing heartbreak.
The real-life heartbreak is so deep that Durkin wrote youngest son Chris Von Erich (dead at 21) out of the movie entirely, to shorten the film, to reduce the repetition and to spare audiences at least a modicum of grief.
That said, there’s more to Durkin’s film than emotional anguish.
A blast from the past?
Benefitting from period-authentic costuming and production design — with specific accolades owed to its spot-on re-creations of 1980s wrestling shows — “The Iron Claw” is on one hand a blast from pro wrestling’s past. (Where are my Mid-South Wrestling people at?)
On the other hand, it also benefits from the pathos generated by its talented ensemble cast. That starts with top-line star Zac Efron, whose physical transformation from scrawny “High School Musical” kid to the positively shredded Kevin Von Erich is a testament to his dedication to the craft.
We’ll leave it to others to decide if Efron’s noticeably heavier jawline is the result of surgery following a 2013 fall that “shattered” his jawbone, as he insists, or of steroids, as the internet insists.
Durkin’s film also, however, includes fine work from others, including Jeremy Allen White (“Bear”) as Kerry Von Erich and Holt MCallany (“Mindhunter”) as Fritz, the scowling, domineering pater familias whose lovelessness gets the unspoken blame from Durkin for the Von Erich boys’ torment.
Thanks to their work, and that of Durkin, “The Iron Claw” could very well leave a mark on Hollywood’s upcoming award season.
In the process, it also just might help pro wrestling win the biggest of prizes, one that has eluded it for, lo, so many years: a little respect.
Mike Scott can be reached at moviegoermike@gmail.com.
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'THE IRON CLAW'
3 stars, out of 4
SNAPSHOT: A Baton Rouge-shot drama about professional wrestling’s “cursed” Von Erich family.
CAST: Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, Maura Tierney, Stanley Simmons, Holt McCallany, Lily James.
DIRECTOR: Sean Durkin.
RATED: R, for language, suicide, some sexuality and drug use.
TIME: 2 hours 12 minutes.
WHEN AND WHERE: Opens Friday (Dec. 22) in wide theatrical release.
