I was a wrestling kid growing up. And at the age of 45, that means I was watching World Class Championship Wrestling on ESPN every week in the early 80s. My first favorite wrestler I can remember having? Kevin Von Erich. Apparently I always gravitated to the smaller, athletic guys. Later on, it would be Dynamite Kid, Jyushin Lyger, Brian Pillman and so on.

But first, there was Kevin. The barefoot, lanky flyer (for that time, at least). He had the best standing drop kick in the business as far as I can remember at that time. Yes kids, there was a time a standing drop kick was considered high-flying. I use to practice it as a kid. One of my Pop’s favorite stories of my childhood was the time I “practiced” it on him and broke his nose. He says it was hard to be mad at me because it was, in fact, a really good dropkick.

I remember the David Von Erich Memorial. Even got it on VHS years later. I remember Jeff Jarrett attacking Mike Von Erich over the Rookie of the Year award. And I remember all the tragedy that followed the family.

So, when I saw they were making a film based on the Von Erich family. I was intrigued. So, here are some quick thoughts after seeing it.

• I really thought going in that Zac Effron was going to be playing Kerry Von Erich. I had really only seen the pre-production photos, saw how huge he was now and assumed he was playing Kerry, the most muscular of the brothers. So it caught me off guard when he was Kevin.
• That left Jeremy Allen White (Bear) playing Kerry. It bothered me the entire movie that Kerry was smaller than Kevin. Not so say anything of their performances, it just felt weird.
• If you know the history, you know this movie is dark. There is just no other away around it. Six brothers, five deaths. Although they did not include the youngest brother in this movie for some reason. I have not ready why. (Edit: After posting this review, was sent a link to an article on this. The TL;DR version: We ran out of time.)
• I did catch White on one of the late night talk shows talking about Kevin having one request for the movie: make sure it was obvious he loved his brothers. They nailed that aspect.
• The tragedy of the deaths did feel rushed, given the nature of a two-hour movie. I think I would have preferred a short series for this. There was plenty of material for it. Probably not multiple seasons, but a 6-8 episode limited series could have been done.
• Holt McCallany (Mindhunters) does a serviceable Fritz Von Erich. It can’t be easy playing a character that obviously loves his sons but also had obvious failings. It is a fine line to walk.
• Aaron Dean Eisenberg played Ric Flair. His performance was laughably bad. The rest of the wrestler portrayals were okay, in mostly nonspeaking roles.
• I put this in the same category as Joker. Good movie, very well done and acted. Glad I watched it. And I probably won’t ever watch it again. As I’ve aged, I’ve decided these movies have a purpose, but for me, that purpose is not to be explored repeatedly. They are tough. They take you to dark places. And I just don’t want to go to those dark places anymore.