The early reviews for The Iron Claw are diving off the ropes, and the consensus is as blunt as a piledriver to the face: Zac Efron delivers the performance of his career in this real-life wrestling tale from A24. Not only did the actor get incredibly jacked for the role of Kevin von Erich, but he managed to slip into the head of his character in a way that has left virtually every critic touting Efron as the muscular heart of The Iron Claw.
Holt McCallany also gets several shout-outs as family patriarch Fritz von Erich. McCallany is name-dropped almost as much as Efron for delivering an equally standout performance as the sadistic head of the wrestling family that navigates a dizzying amount of tragedy in the Sean Durkin film.
You can see what the critics are saying about The Iron Claw below:
Owen Gleiberman, Variety:
“The Iron Claw” has a more convincing period atmosphere than “The Holdovers,” it showcases the media theatrics of wrestling with an eerie unironic innocence, and the rest of the cast is superb. White’s role is a bit underwritten, but he uses his hangdog handsomeness to suggest muffled demons. Harris Dickinson, who played the aspiring model/influencer in “Triangle of Sadness,” makes as convincing a Texas hippie as anyone in “Dazed and Confused,” and Lily James, as the girlfriend Kevin marries, is the soul of hardheaded devotion. But in the end it’s Zac Efron’s movie. He plays Kevin as a moving simpleton with hidden depths, a fellow of such decency that the one thing he won’t do is disobey. He’s the film’s Cringing Bull.
David Ehrlich, IndieWire:
A true-life American tragedy that leverages the summery Texas idyll of “Dazed & Confused” into a larger than life — but heartbreakingly sincere — re-telling of “King Lear,” “The Iron Claw” is a wrestling epic inspired by a legend so sad that writer-director Sean Durkin felt like he had to sand it down in order for it to seem believable on screen. Inverting the fake it so real ethos of a sport that’s long been enjoyed as a form of steroidal theater (its operatic melodrama sustained by the exaggerated nature of its spectacle and vice-versa), Durkin’s film dials back the body count so that the scale of its loss doesn’t make it impossible for audiences to accept that it actually happened, or to exalt in the love that it ultimately left behind.
Brian Truitt, USA Today:
Efron proves to be the film’s most important revelation. The “High School Musical” star has taken meatier roles in recent years: 2022’s “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” showed us he was on the cusp of something special, and that comes to fruition with Kevin’s emotional odyssey through unyielding personal trauma. It’s because of him, and the film’s unabashed love for and understanding of wrestling, that “The Iron Claw” will get a handle on you and won’t let go.
Pete Hammond, Deadline:
Obviously these guys must have trained their asses off. Dickinson (Triangle Of Sadness) and White each are given memorable and moving scenes as well. Lily James has the girlfriend role as Pam who hooks up with Efron’s Kevin, and she nicely acquits herself rising above the stereotypical nature of this kind of part. Tierney is all pro as usual. But it is McCallany who has described his role as kind of a modern King Lear, and it fits. This actor does not attempt to soften the very hard edges of a man who will not change, who will not accept less than what he demands of his sons, and is unapologetic. He nails it.
David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter:
Durkin cites Raging Bull and The Deer Hunter as inspirations; there are faint echoes of the former in the fallout of violence as entertainment, and the latter in the mournful unraveling of male camaraderie as innocence is lost. If the horrific magnitude of the family’s experience somehow falls short, the film doesn’t stint on the visceral impact of scenes in the ring, which are the root of both triumph and desolation.
Chris Plante, Polygon:
It would be easy for the “just guys being dudes” energy to topple into movie of the week territory, but Durkin has partnered with brilliant artists who understand how to walk the high wire he’s strung his film on. That includes his leading man. With awards like the Golden Globes already looking foolish in overlooking The Iron Claw’s performances, I’d be remiss not to briefly spotlight the true champion of this ring: Efron is conjuring magic here, taking a character with few things to say and the vocabulary of a children’s book, and instilling him with the comforting glow of a night light.
Lisa Laman, Collider:
Actors like Efron, White, and Dickinson are especially fascinating in this regard, as they must portray wrestlers with believably outsized public personas who quietly communicate bottled-up internal pain in their interactions behind closed doors. They’re very much up to this daunting task, with Efron especially impressing in a role that other actors could’ve sleepwalked through. In playing Kevin, Efron must portray a husk of a man who doesn’t realize he’s a husk.
Thelma Adams, The Wrap:
Efron is no longer the tuneful Disney star who broke out as the lead in the “High School Musical” trilogy. Now, at 36, his face rearranged by a jaw-shattering car accident in 2013, he has done the actorly thing (calling Christian Bale and Charlize Theron). He’s bulked up, even Hulked up, to play a loyal son who desperately seeks his father’s approval in the ring while surrounded by a sea of brothers who idolize him. With a chest like two beef roasts and mammoth musculature bisected by ropy veins, Efron has reconfigured himself as a leading man, while the sensitive boy still stares out of blazing blue eyes that can’t be muscled over.
The Iron Claw opens in theaters on December 22.
