‘The Iron Claw’ Never Should Have Omitted a Brother’s Death

Even before The Iron Claw’s Dec. 22 release, wrestling fans and filmgoers raised their eyebrows: The drama film, about the many real-life tragedies of the Von Erich brothers, completely erases one of the brothers.

Chris Von Erich was the youngest of the six Von Erich brothers, a family of wrestlers originally from Texas that enjoyed success in the ring—and widespread popularity—during the mid-to-late ’80s. But the tragic headline of the family, which the film explores, is the haunting deaths that plagued them at every turn. Like four of his five elder brothers, Chris died young. Plagued by medical problems, depression, drug abuse, and the reality of being too short to be competitive among a family of competitors, he shot himself at age 21.

It’s both gross and a fool’s errand to decide which of the many horrors that befell the Von Erichs is most gutting. But by all accounts, Chris’ life in particular was defined by heartbreaking disappointments—which is what makes the film’s omission of his story so frustrating.

“To the rest of the brothers,” wrote Robert Wilonsky in a 1997 Dallas Observer profile of the family, “all of whom had athletic aspirations outside the ring—wrestling was just a business, a way to kill time during off-seasons. They were forced into the ring only after circumstances conspired against them. But Chris wanted to wrestle—if only, Kevin says, because he could not.”

Kevin, played by Zac Efron in The Iron Claw, is the only member of the Von Erich wrestling dynasty still alive. The film, directed and written by Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene), centers on him, as he suffers loss after loss. Before the film begins, we learn that Kevin’s eldest brother Jack died at age 6, when Kevin was 1 year old. But nearly 25 years later, Kevin’s remaining brothers begin to die in rapid succession. First, his 25-year-old brother David (Harris Dickinson) dies of a sudden infection; his 23-year-old brother Mike (Stanley Simons) dies by suicide three years later, following mental and physical debilitation due to a surgery gone wrong. His last remaining brother, Kerry, dies six years later, also by suicide. With each death, Kevin becomes increasingly obsessed with the idea that his family is cursed.

His preoccupation with this possible family curse propels the story forward. But, thematically, The Iron Claw is animated by an obsessive desire to please their emotionally abusive father. Even before their deaths, the boys’ many thwarted attempts at winning their father’s love defines their suffering. It brings them both closer together—Kevin is arguably more devoted to the safety of his brothers than even that of his beleaguered wife (Lily James)—just as it also tears them apart. After David’s death, Fritz Von Erich’s (Holt McCallany) primary concern is who will replace him in an upcoming wrestling match; instead of comforting his grieving sons Kevin, Mike, and Kerry (Jeremy Allan White), he instantly pits them against each other.

The emotional impact of Fritz’s self-satisfying quest to have his sons pick up to become champions in the ring, just as he had once been, subtly defines each character’s choices. But watching the film, I couldn’t stop thinking about two things: the impending deaths, and how perfectly Chris’ story would have played into The Iron Claw’s core narrative element.

The film’s back half devolves into rote, plot-driven biopic territory: Kevin obsesses over each of his brothers’ survival, instantly telegraphing to a knowing audience that each brother is not long for this world. Efron’s stiff performance prevents him from showing the weariness that Kevin must be feeling, constantly faced with a lengthening trail of dead behind him. But the film’s pacing certainly suffers for it, as it draws out each coming horror with harrowing moments meant to poke at an already empathetic viewer.

For example: When we learn what happens to Kerry after an ecstatic, high-speed motorcycle ride, as fellow Daily Beast’s Obsessed critic Coleman Spilde recently noted, it’s in an overtly gasp-worthy fashion: Kerry is alive, but he’s down a foot. The camera lingers on this in a wide shot of the win-obsessed Kerry hobbling around alone in his kitchen, his wrestling career instantly thrown into the balance.

The choice to remove Chris from all of this was certainly something that was on Durkin’s mind, according to a litany of pre-release interviews.

“It was the hardest decision I made” to write Chris’ story out of the script, Durkin told Vulture. “The movie just couldn’t withstand another brother’s death.” He gave a similar explanation to both The Los Angeles Times and Uproxx, additionally suggesting that he was unsure the movie “would have gotten made” if he hadn’t removed Chris’ story.

“It became that simple, which is so difficult from a human level, and that was what you grapple with,” Durkin told Uproxx. “But from a storytelling perspective, it was right.” The Iron Claw is about loss instead of grief, he explained; Kevin’s journey toward, if not peace, acceptance of his unfortunate lot in life takes precedence.

With The Iron Claw already overwhelmed by darkness, Durkin’s fears that the film would be too heavy with an added death makes some sense. His candor in revealing both how difficult it was to remove Chris—who, he said, remained in drafts for upward of “seven years”—and his concerns that studios would be reluctant to produce such a death-heavy movie is respectable too. And, for what it’s worth, Durkin also said he blended some of Chris’ specific insecurities and life moments into Mike’s story, carrying the baby brother’s spirit forward, if anonymously.

But if one had to eliminate a character at all, why pick Chris? David’s storyline, as it were, ends abruptly in comparison to that of Mike and Kerry. As the first brother of the wrestling crew to die, removing David would pose some narrative challenges. But it’s hard to argue that it so dramatically ups the emotional ante in such a way that the film could not support that of one more brother. And in reality, Mike was injured while on a tour abroad, not in the ring, as the film additionally contrives; while there is narrative intrigue to the fact that Fritz chose to push the reluctant brother to take over David’s place in the ring, it makes for a lofty and not particularly satisfying replacement for Chris.

Again: It is difficult to make a call here on moral grounds alone. But The Iron Claw would have benefited from the nuanced story of a frail member of a family of men renowned for their physical prowess contending with limitations he can’t overcome. For Kevin to lose any of his brothers is horrible, let alone all of them—and that very much includes Chris, an incredibly troubled young man. If we want to talk about emotional imprisonment, undue parental pressures, and family curses, well, Chris’ short life and death perfectly fits into that narrative.

That said, compressing the Von Erich family’s rich, dark, shocking story into just over two hours was a tall order from the start. Durkin’s effort wasn’t completely unsuccessful; The Iron Claw is ultimately an interesting portrait of hyper-masculine repression, and the struggle to verbalize your emotional needs in a system that never teaches you how to do so.

But when we see that family portrait in one of the film’s earliest shots, in which there are four young boys seated happily among their parents—and a fifth photo taped onto it, for a more complete picture—it’s hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment about what could have been. And that’s in more ways than, well, five.