The Punisher: Dirty Laundry

Watching The Punisher (2004) starring Thomas Jane was a fun ride. I thought a lot of the action sequences were well staged as were the acting and the music well written. My only quarrel with the film was that plot dragged slightly and how the moments of sadness in the weirdest places. Most of them dealt with Travolta's character. For example, when Howard Saint (Travolta) confronts a longtime friend about betraying him, as a villain, he should be livid, not emotionally distraught. The sadness that Jane displays is frequent too but it's forgivable since the reboot had to establish the fact that his family was gone.

Thankfully, there's nothing like that in this ten-minute film. Eight years later, we find Thomas Jane back as Frank Castle just trying to do some laundry when he stumbles onto innocent blood being spilt. Need I say more? We all know what happens next; pure punishment. The difference between this film and the feature length remake that Jane starred in 2004 was the tone of the movie. The first dealt more with Castle's grief about the death of his family (which is understandable to a point). Here, Castle has accepted the fact that his family is gone and now could care less who he's hurting. And that's also the attitude of Ron Perlman's character whose just a store clerk. For the few lines he gave, it was something you wouldn't normally hear from a store clerk. All good acting though.

I'm still not giving this short film a full ten stars because this wasn't a full feature length movie. There's obviously not enough to explore in ten minutes. Plus the fact that the blood was fake as well but what do you expect for a ten-minute film. The hand-to-hand combat is great to watch as is the improvised weapon Jane uses to break up a gang. The music, although I have no idea who scored it, sounded good and the ending was quite satisfying. Will this bring Jane back as Frank Castle? Right now, that's in the air but if it does end up coming to fruition, having it done this way would be a much better way to go.

I happened to stumble across this while checking out the recent stories from Comic Con 12. Wow! Am I glad that I did. This 10 minute short is absolutely superb!

It's dark, gritty, dramatic and has a sense of realism to it that makes it that much more enthralling. I always loved Thomas Jane as the punisher character Frank Castle but felt that the rest of the movie wasn't done as well as it could have been.

This short has the atmospheric tension and drama that the movie was missing, as the street thugs continue to run rampant the suspense and tension continuously builds until it gets to the stage where we know what must be done. Punishment.

Also some of the shots used were just sublime, the slow motion shot of Frank Castle crossing the street while throwing the Jack Daniels bottle in the air is awesome! You forgive the poor blood effects given it was made by Thomas Jane as a fan/tribute video but by god, did they do a fantastic job!

Have to give a nod to the acting in general, Thomas Jane is the punisher and performed greatly as expected but the surprise appearance by Ron Pearlman was terrific and his acting as nothing but a store clerk was amazing and very convincing.

If you are yet to see it, do yourselves a favor and get onto YouTube to watch it! I hope that this ends up being seen by the right people and Thomas Jane gets picked up to reprise his role as the most bad-ass vigilante to grace the silver screen.

"What's the difference between justice and punishment?"

I'm watching this fresh off a(nother) disappointing viewing of 2004's "The Punisher", so there's really nowhere to go but up, right? Especially when it's only a 10-minute running time. Either way, "The Punisher: Dirty Laundry", lean, mean and minimalist, finally lets Frank Castle get down to the business of kicking some ass. All of the necessary brooding and none of the lame villains, no milquetoast sadism - hell, the real fun here is watching Thomas Jane take a whiskey bottle to the heads of a street gang (with the requisite blood sprays). It's quick, to the point, and violently satisfying.

It's a sad state of affairs when Hollywood can't do (in three movies!) what a YouTube video can.

7/10

This ten-minute homage to The Punisher is a fan-film, but a fan-film made by professionals. The Punisher is played by Thomas Jane, an actor who played him in the 2004 movie. There's also Ron Perlman, and others are professional actors too. The director is not famous, but he is experienced. Phil Joanou has previously directed about twenty films, series and music videos, including Bon Jovi's "Keep the Faith" and a bunch of videos for U2. The movie infringes on Punisher's copyright and uses music from "The Dark Knight" (2008), so it's only been released on YouTube and it's a wonder that it wasn't removed already.

The story is simple, realistic and brutal, and gives a better characterization of Frank Castle than the Marvel films. The film is very well made and, after this, all three feature films in Marvel production look lame. It would be fantastic if this crew would get an opportunity to shoot a full-length feature film and make a proper adaptation of The Punisher.

8/10

The Punisher: Dirty Laundry, is a short film that is nothing but awesome fan service. Seriously, I've been waiting for the day that Thomas Jane embodies Frank Castle again. This right here is that sequel we always wanted. Unfortunately, it is only a 10 minute long short. But, we get some nice stuff here.

The Good: Tom Jane is the perfect Punisher. He is so dang good in the role! His performance is out of this world! Also, nice Ron Perlman cameo! Very cool. The story here is very Punisher-esque, along with the ideals of punishment and justice that Frank speaks of at the end and with Perlman's character. Nice photography as well. I love the new Punisher logo too!

The Bad: Since this is a short film, the blood and gun effects are pretty lousy. We also get some over the top violence that I think even Garth Ennis would not write into his books. It's violent alright, but not the violence I enjoyed from the 2004 film. It's bloody and gory, but too more gore and they lose me. Also, the score is the Dark Knight score. It pulls me right out of the story when I hear it used here. Wish they used something else, oh well.

Overall, this is Thomas Jane as The Punisher again. Need I say more?