 Hold your head up high, because you want to live this way forever. Ooh, that's a hot mug, guys. Hey guys, this is my review for A24's The Iron Claw. Something I do want to address right off the bat is that for those who do know the story about the Von Erich family, it does play a little bit loosey-goosey with the history. And I know I have been a proponent of that with films in the past, especially films like The Greatest Showman, or Napoleon being a very recent example. However, I do understand some of the choices they made, purely for runtime, purely for character development, and still getting across the same story. Yes, this film does alter a few things in terms of how things happen. For instance, they do omit a brother, kind of form two brothers into one character. I do understand that that might upset a few people. They maybe could have done a little bit better with that on that aspect, but I still feel that the director-writer wanted to do as good of a story in a concise amount of time, but still be as respectful to the family as he possibly could. And I think he did that in spades, because Iron Claw is a fucking fantastic movie. Had I seen this last year, this absolutely would have been my contender for number one. Zac Efron does probably one of the best performances I've ever seen this kid do. It's kind of weird to call him kid, but my God, just amazing work in this movie. Jeremy Allen White is fantastic. Harris Dixon is fantastic. Holt McCulley, who is the father. What a fucking bastard, and does it so well. Lily James is in this as well. I was really impressed with everyone who was in this movie, and also I loved how committed it was to the art of wrestling, not only in terms of how wrestling is described, because they do a part where they're like, well, isn't wrestling fake? And Zac's character, Kevin, is able to describe it as in terms of promotions and how you do well and you work your way up into the ranks, and it kind of makes it grounded for people who are outside of wrestling to understand. Very much like the wrestler with Mickey Rourke, this can be viewed by both wrestling fans and non-wrestling fans, and you will still get the same message. You will still get the same amazingly heartbreaking story out of it. Hell, Jaffa Guerrero Jr. here helped did the fight choreography for all the wrestling scenes, and he played the chic. If there's one thing that kind of maybe was a bit odd was the guy who played Ric Flair, he wasn't nowhere near as woo as he should have been. Now, obviously the narrative is something great. It is all about this family and their commitment to the sport of wrestling, and the curse or the supposed curse that follows them, and with every success, with every strive in their goal that they get, there is always something that follows in the terms of a negative, whether it be injury, death, health. You're watching this story through Kevin mainly, and you watch this man who is technically the oldest brother and takes care of his brothers, loves his brothers, but he watches them go one by one, and all of that building momentum of those moments build up to the conclusion of the film. And there was a moment right before the credits roll where I'm not lying at all, I burst into tears. I was absolutely floored by how great this one part was delivered because everything from the beginning of the film had been leading up to this one line of dialogue, and it broke me, guys. It broke me. And another thing that I really want to point out is how good Sean Durkin did in his directing, not only with giving the actors what to do, the story direction, but also setting up scenes. There's a lot of one shots in here where there is a ton going on in the background. One of the first times is when we come up to the stadium where a wrestling event is about to happen and we're watching these regular people slowly conform and start to come together. I loved how much was going on, not just in terms of building the setting, but also really putting yourself into that 70s, 80s sort of persona. And it's more so in the 70s. As I mentioned, there are some parts in the story where Zach fights someone and it kind of seems like that's it. It never happened again when, in fact, they would have fought like another six or seven times, but the message and the result is still the same. And you know with a film like this, you're going into a hard run. You're going into something that's going to hit you in the heart. In fact, and for the most part, this all happened. Not exactly in the events that they occur. Like, for instance, there's one moment where a character wins a belt and then immediately something bad happens to him. Like, it's seemingly overnight when, in fact, it happened, say, like a year later. That is a bit of a, you got to deal with. But again, it would have been hard to not just have this movie be full of nothing but montages. Truly, this is the wrestler film of this generation, of this decade, should have been nominated for fucking something. It didn't even get best song. And I haven't been able to get that goddamn song out of my head ever since I watched it. The iron claw is not just made for wrestling fans. This is a hard-hitting story about a family trying to do nothing but do good for a father figure who cared more about their image and their standing than perhaps the mental fortitude and the health of his sons. There's a good part that both of the parents would say is, you got to work that out with your brothers. And being a brother myself, I can't imagine what Kevin went through. The absolute loss he witnesses and the attempts he does to try and help his brothers and trying to prevent the fates that befall them, it's heart-wrenching. It's so goddamn good. Aside from the bad Rick Flair impersonator and the loosey-goosingness with the historical events, I still say that iron claw is one of the best movies that came out last year. It would have definitely been number two on my list for last year. Hands flocking down. So in the end, I'm going to give the iron claw a six out of seven. It doesn't get the seven from me purely because, like I said, about the historical things. And I know that some people are like, oh, that shouldn't get in the way of a story and whatnot. I, because of how stingy I've been about it before, I find that would be a bit hypocritical. But really speaking, if I didn't give a shit about that, I would have given this movie a seven. It's flocking great, guys. If you haven't seen it yet, go out and watch it. It's incredible. I absolutely recommend it. Anyways, guys, those are my thoughts about this movie. Very interested to see what you guys have to say. Please let me know in the comments below. Whether you're a wrestling fan or not, please let me know because I would love to know what you guys think about this film. Because like I said, it was really, really good, at least for me. Anyways, guys, that's all for me. Hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, leave a like. And if you're interested in more, subscribe. Until then, see you guys next time.