Netflix And Chill: The Iron Claw (2023)

Two things have happened as wrestling has grown in popularity over the decades. One, more and more people have been available to point out how obviously fake it all is, especially when it comes to ongoing storylines and twists and turns on the road to crowning champions for different events. Two, more and more people have been available to point out that it takes a hell of a lot of physical skill and strength to sell that fakery. Real injuries happen all of the time, some of them a lot worse than others, and career wrestlers know just how much blood, sweat, and tears they have left in the ring after years of fighting to entertain hungry crowds. Sometimes it's just enough. Sometimes it's far too much.

The Iron Claw is a tale of wrestling, in a way. It's a look at the Von Erichs, a family who seemed to be cursed, and shows how the male members of that family were worn down over the years by the physical toll of their lifestyles, the pressures put upon them, and sometimes just one bad decision leading to the worst possible outcome. There's pain throughout almost every scene, and the moments that are pain-free feel threatened by some as-yet-unseen train hurtling down the tracks to crash and upend multiple lives.

The third feature from writer-director Sean Durkin, The Iron Claw may seem like it's only for a niche audience, but it actually works well for anyone who has felt that pressure to do something that they didn't always love. That pressure may come from parents, as it so often does, or it may come from siblings. It could come from a loving partner, it could come from those trying to influence your career decisions to deliver a desired outcome. And sometimes, even with those other voices silenced, it comes from within. While The Iron Claw IS about wrestling, it's equally about that internal voice, and the struggle to deal with it.

Holt McCallany does a very good job as the patriarch, a man who thinks he knows what is best for his sons and maintains constant pressure on them to try and be the best they can be. He's a human steamroller, but remains loved by his children long after the damage he has caused finally starts to become clear. The film rests on the broad and muscular shoulders of Zac Efron though, who is put on display in his very first scene in a way that displays his incredible transformation into some kind of man-mountain. Efron can act, of course, but his commitment to embodying Kevin Von Erich here leads to what is arguably his best ever dramatic performance. Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Stanley Simons are the three other main Von Erich boys shown onscreen, with all of them doing well enough to share the screen with McCallany and/or Efron, and both Maura Tierney and Lily James do their best as the main women orbiting a small planet of dense musculature and toxic masculinity.

Like many a film based on real life events, some truths have been omitted and some of the timeline has been moved around, but that doesn't stop this from being very effective and informative, much like the best documentaries. I think those already familiar with the story will find a lot to appreciate here, even if they pick up on certain errors or scenes that they feel don't quite represent things with 100% accuracy, and those who know much less about the wrestling world, like myself, will be moved by it, and maybe interested in diving a little deeper into the true story.  

Don't put this on when you're not prepared for it, mentally. It's a rough, draining, experience, and runs for just over two hours. But do steel your resolve to tackle it one day. It's a majorly impressive work, thanks to Durkin making a number of smart choices and a cast who go as far as they can to present their characters with authenticity, in both their bodies and their souls.

8/10

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The Amateur (2025)

There's a fairly decent idea at the heart of The Amateur, I guess, but it's weakened by some casting and the pacing of the whole thing. At least one character turn doesn't seem to make any sense, there are a few too many coincidences for something revolving around someone trying to out-think others, and you're likely to forget all about it within a week or two.

Rami Malek plays Heller, an employee of the CIA who seeks revenge after the death of his wife (Sarah, played by Rachel Brosnahan). There are some problems with his plan though. One, he's a tech guy, and not really any use out in the field. Two, the people responsible for the death of his wife are people that the CIA don't necessarily want taken out of action immediately. Three, putting himself in the field might be a very easy way for the CIA to ensure that he isn't able to bother them again.

Based on a novel by Robert Littell, The Amateur has been turned into a movie by writers Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli. Those two writers don't have many real highlights in their pasts, which would explain the flat end result here, and director James Hawes, while a very competent film-maker, doesn't have the imagination or flair to liven things up. I will happily give Hawes a pass, considering the fact that he sat in the director's chair for the first season of the superb Slow Horses, but it soon becomes clear that this is an action thriller made by people who aren't quite attuned to the rhythms and requirements of blockbuster entertainment.

And, as much as I enjoyed his fine work in Mr. Robot, one of the main requirements of blockbuster entertainment would seem to be avoiding the casting of Rami Malek in a central role. He was the weakest part of the excellent No Time To Die, he was outshone by a cast of more memorable supporting players in the Night At The Museum movies, he's attached his name to Need For Speed, Battleship, and Dolittle, and I'll only give him credit for Bohemian Rhapsody because that felt like the one role he was actually perfect for. It's all well and good to have him supported by people like Rachel Brosnahan, Jon Bernthal, Adrian Martinez, Laurence Fishburne, Holt McCallany, Julianne Nicholson, and Michael Stuhlbarg, but not very satisfying when almost all of them are sorely underused. 

It's easy to see the appeal of this. Make an action thriller hero who has to keep using his brain instead of brawn and/or firepower. It needed something else though. Either some shinier star power, some more inventive set-pieces, or a plot with many more interesting twists and turns. It's decent, staying pretty easily watchable for most of the runtime (which clocks in at about the 2 hour mark), but you may get to the end credits and decide that you could have picked a far better viewing option. I know I did. 

5/10

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Prime Time: Gangster Squad (2013)

When one or two good cops are fed up of gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) basically turning Los Angeles into his own personal playground it soon becomes clear that the best way to beat him is to act outside the law. And the Gangster Squad is created, a group of tough cops who operate without a badge while setting about systematically destroying the operations that keep Cohen in wealth and power.

Based on a non-fiction book by Paul Lieberman (which isn’t to say this is an accurate retelling of anything that comes close to the truth), Gangster Squad is very much style over substance, with the script from Will Beall happy to fit in as many tropes and recycled classic noir movie moments as possible. That doesn’t mean it’s unenjoyable. It’s just an inferior copy of numerous outright classics (including one or two modern classics, with The Untouchables casting as big a shadow over this as the classic WB gangster movies of the ‘30s and ‘40s. 

Director Ruben Fleischer can do fun films. I like one of his films more than the rest of his filmography (the one that involves zombies and a man on the hunt for Twinkies), but I have enjoyed most of his directorial efforts so far, to varying degrees. Even the mis-cast Uncharted. I didn’t enjoy this film though, and it feels as if Fleischer couldn’t get a handle on the material, but was hoping a few cool moments stitched together would help distract people from it being such a messy dollop of weak sauce. He has done well with casting, and managed to do equally well with the team of people working behind the camera to bring the Los Angeles of this time period to life, but there’s no feeling of a steady hand at the wheel.

Josh Brolin ends up as the head of the titular squad, and he gives another strong and gruff performance that matches a lot of his other work. If you need someone in authority to roll up their sleeves and do some dirty work then Brolin is your man, and he also looks damn sharp in the 1940s style. Alongside him are characters played by Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick, Michael Peña, Giovanni Ribisi, and Ryan Gosling. All of them do pretty decent work, with the exception of Gosling, who has decided to give his character a slightly higher-pitched way of speaking that doesn’t work. I can guess why he decided to give it a try, but someone should have stopped him. Emma Stone is dazzling as a woman caught up in Cohen’s world, Nick Nolte has a couple of great scenes as he assembles, and checks in on, the squad (off the record), and Penn gets to play his bad guy like he’s just walked off the pages of a Dick Tracy comic strip. Holt McCallany adds another henchman role to his long list of henchman roles, something he excels at, and the rest of the cast is stacked with familiar faces you will recognise, although may not be able to name.

If Fleischer wanted to make something violent and gripping then he failed. If he wanted to make something that felt like an important portrayal of a true story then he failed there too (none of this rings true, sadly, even if it is based on some real events). There are times when it almost gets the right balance, an attempted jailbreak being a highlight until the lights go out, but it’s mostly some pretty, but unengaging, visuals accompanied by a very nice score from Steve Jablonksy. There’s just about enough here to keep me moderately happy for the runtime, but I am VERY easily pleased.

4/10

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Prime Time: Wrath Of Man (2021)

Guy Ritchie seems to be on a bit of a roll at a moment, having made use of his blockbuster success with the Sherlock Holmes movies to play around a bit more with projects that feel more in line with his earlier works without just feeling like regurgitated "mix tapes" of his past glories. Wrath Of Man may be a remake of a 2004 movie, Le Convoyeur (sadly, I haven't seen the original yet), but it's also great material for Ritchie to slot one of his favourite stars into.

There's also a great remix of Folsom City Blues, familiar already to anyone who saw the trailer. Yes, it's so good that I am mentioning it here before I forget to mention it at all.

Jason Statham is H, a man who gets himself a job at a cash truck company. The company had a truck robbed some months before, a robbery that resulted in some deaths, but H doesn't seem bothered by the risk inherent in his new role. In fact, he seems to want robbers to try their luck with him. He definitely has his own agenda, and there's a lot more to him than he is revealing to his new work colleagues.

Having worked on the screenplay with Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies (who also worked on The Gentlemen and the upcoming Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre), Ritchie uses a familiar bag of tricks - the friendly faces, a non-chronological approach to the main storyline, a good helping of dry wit - to sugarcoat what may well be his darkest film yet. The film is broken into a number of chapters and one, entitled "Scorched Earth", stands out as being a mix of the cinematically stylish and the incredibly nihilistic. It's a flesh-coloured trip through a circle of hell that shows Statham's character beginning his quest for whatever it is that he's seeking.

Aside from Statham, being as great as ever in the lead role, the rest of the cast includes some fine supporting turns. Holt McCallany enjoys one of his best ever movie roles as Bullet, one of the main company staff members, straight-talking and with the potential key to information that would prove invaluable to H. Josh Hartnett is good fun as the "all mouth, no trousers" Boy Sweat Dave, Eddie Marsan is the depot boss, Jeffrey Donovan is someone who thinks they have a perfect robbery planned, and Scott Eastwood does his best work yet (not saying much though, compared to how bland so many of his other performances have been) as Jan, a robber with the kind of attitude that you just know is going to lead to trouble. There are other people doing good work here - Andy Garcia, Niamh Algar, Alex Ferns, Darrell D'Silva, etc - but they're very much minor moons orbiting the planets at the heart of the big set-pieces, although D'Silva still does enough to make himself an easy highlight.

I'll want to see the original movie at some point, and some people have said that it's a superior work, but this surprised me with how good it was. It's a classic tale of revenge, and the structure of the narrative helps the pacing and increases the tense gathering of thunderclouds and the impact of the storm that you just know is coming along in the third act. It's not one to watch if you want an action thriller grounded in any kind of reality, but it's a perfect choice if you want a superior Statham vehicle that has plenty of bloodshed, fun dialogue, a cause you end up rooting for, and a number of set-ups that are all paid off before the end credits roll.

8/10

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