Cast:
Zac Efron (Kevin Von Erich), Jeremy Allen White (Kerry Von Erich), Harris Dickinson (David Von Erich), Maura Tierney (Doris Von Erich), Stanley Simons (Mike Von Erich), Holt McCallany (Fritz Von Erich), Lily James (Pam Adkisson), and Michael J. Harney (Bill Mercer) Written and Directed by Sean Durkin.
Review:
“These big wrestlers are in the ring performing acts of extreme emotion—pain, glory, injustice. But then they go back behind the curtain and have to follow these old-school ideas of male toughness—keeping their emotions inside, not talking about mental health, and not dealing with how depressing it is to spend 300 nights a year on the road. That was the real curse. I think the reason Kevin survived and was able to start again was because of his access to his emotions. He speaks so beautifully about his pain and is so unafraid to talk about it." - Sean Durkin, 2023
"I wouldn’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. What am I doing today? I watch Ross play football; my kids call and tell me they love me; my investments do well. I have a good life, and I’m planning on having a lot more. When people say, ‘How do you do it?’ the answer is pretty simple, really. If you don’t have any choice, then it’s easy to deal with. What else are you going to do? Just drop dead and sink into the ground like rain?” - Kevin Von Erich, 2005
Admittedly, film and life can be pretty interesting in those things (big or not as big) that can't quite make it in the telling. For one thing, Fritz Von Erich had the name he played in the ring come two ways: Stu Hart (famed promoter in the business) came up with it to play with the heel gimmick of a Nazi (Fritz, really named Jack Adkisson, had a mother with a maiden name of Erich), which he utilized for a good chunk of the 1950s (before eventually going lighter). This gimmick saw him paired with Walter Sieber, who went by "Waldo Von Erich" and would fight for a variety of years, most notably with the Worldwide Wrestling Federation. Fritz had six sons: Jack Jr, Kevin, David, Kerry, Mike, and Chris, for which three died by suicide and two died suddenly (one from drowning after electrocution and the other by dubious circumstances). Fritz himself died of brain cancer at the age of 68 in 1997, five years after he went through divorce (apparently, before his death, he even put a gun up to his son Kevin). Von Erich and Durkin had an open dialogue about the project, although that did not extend to the script written by Durkin, which excised Chris (who had suffered from asthma as a child that left him at 5'4 and had tried to make it as a wrestler for years before his suicide). I would like to mention that not only did Kerry win the world heavyweight championship in the first held "Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions", the promotion of having a memorial parade named after the Von Erichs went for five straight years. And yes, Kerry did in fact wrestle after he lost his right foot (while telling little about the prosthetic he wore under a boot in the ring); the details of his trouble with the law, particularly the chance of being sent to jail for violation of probation right before his death, is not addressed in the film nor are his children. While Durkin was nervous about showing the final film to him and telling him about what it would and wouldn't show, Von Erich was fine with it, calling it a vision where "you don't want the film to be about grief". Almost lost in this is Durkin, who spent several years in developing the film, which is his third feature effort. The Canadian lived in both England and America as a youth before studying film at New York University.
Wrestling isn't exactly something I watch or think about on a daily basis, but I do have the occasional memory in childhood of viewing it...because my parents were pretty interested in viewing WWE stuff from time to time (one particular theme sticks out). Of course, before WWE became the big thing among things in wrestling beyond regions, promotions such as World Class Championship Wrestling made their mark, and it surprised me that I did not know about this North Texas mainstay before. That blend of theatricality rolling with physicality has driven crowds for over a century (in fact, there are newspaper articles in multiple decades that show perceptions of people who view it knowing what professional wrestling "really is": they don't care). Technically speaking, watching a film involving professional wrestling is watching actors act as wrestlers who are acting out moves for an audience (where the champs are usually ones that have played themselves to the crowd well enough, such as on the mic that is demonstrated in the film). The result is a fascinating film that far from being about curses is really the tragedy of a family ripped apart from the inside. The irony is in the fact that the sons are so dedicated to the belief by their dad in that if they are the "toughest, strongest, and most successful" that nothing can hurt them, that they end up being the one to end themselves. Wrestling is a tough venture for any one person, but the toil of trying to live up to the image that is presented to the public, particularly in an infused era of mania of the old days (drugs or otherwise) is just as tough. One could argue just how much tragedy one should and could see in a film (one that is a film as opposed to say, Vice's documentary series Dark Side of the Ring). Or wonder about the portrayal of say, Ric Flair, but that is its own can of worms. Efron is the heart of the film because beyond the physicality that is shown from time to time is a sense of a man who really has to learn to grow beyond the predisposed ideas that made him who he was in growing up. Yes, the real Von Erich would wrestle on and off until his final match in 2017, but one detects both the screen and real Von Erich had the courage to go on tĥeir path without being swept in denial. Efron finds the footing best in showing that beneath the pain of theatrics in the ring and the pain outside of it is a man in dignity. It is composed pain that does not ring false in the chemistry required with James (the only main presence beside the Von Erichs, whose best scene may be their date that has her communicate her interest in him to seemingly his surprise) to show that in the end it is not merely enough to just be physically tough because one doesn't have to do it alone. The on-screen chemistry (in the facets that come in wrestling, drug use, etc.) of the siblings in Efron-White-Dickinson is worthwhile in the devotion that is seen between them that makes for such tremendous tragedy when the roots start to wither. Undoubtedly, McCallany and Tierney play the support of a family with the illusion of strong faith with useful tenor of hard-driving hubris (particularly from McCallany). I feel that the film really could have made for an even better miniseries than a film, because the muddling in the timeline (i.e. what happens in biopic a chunk of the time) does make the execution for the end a bit strange; the two sequences to counter each other in brothers being together is certainly a choice to see play out. As a whole, it is a pretty good effort in the ways that matter most, headlined by Efron in particular, that make for a worthwhile modern tragedy of illusions and reality coming to hit one another like wrestlers in the ring.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
Next up: Takashi Miike's Audition.
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