The Punisher: Dirty Laundry

It never occurred to me that I could review this on here given that it is a ten minute film but once I discovered it was on here I had to sings it praises. This film may be low budget and borrow music from The Dark Knight but it manages to capture the essence and tone of The Punisher in a way no movie or show ever has. It's also a glaring reminder that I would like to see Jane in this role one more time in the definitive Punisher movie but that will never happen so we'll have to accept this as the preview of something great which will never be. Hands down THE BEST PUNISHER EVER PUT TO FILM!

A 40-something man(and is that...? No, it couldn't be, right...?) goes out to the laundromat in a bad neighbourhood, and notices the other allusion of the title - a gang, terrorizing the residents. At first, he goes about his business. Who wouldn't? Can't fix all the world's problems by yourself, right? As the tension mounts(consistently over the course of the well-paced 10 minute running time), however, he may find that he can't ignore what's going on in the street.

The YouTube(yes, this is available for free, legal viewing, so get to it) title originally didn't reveal who this is about, so while the IMDb entry's currently does, I will not give away what graphic novel icon this is about. It does, however, do them complete justice, something that, arguably, wasn't quite achieved by the silver screen attempts. The bleak tone and gritty realism are uncompromising, and fit perfectly. Yes, this is made for and by fans - if you aren't already familiar with the source material, you might not fully appreciate this, and really, when something has decades of printed stories, either you condense and disappoint, or assume that the audience already knows. And yes, if you go into this not knowing yet who it's about, it will, indeed, gradually become clear to you, as with the more recent effort by the same team, Truth In Journalism.

Acting is spot-on. The gold-toothed bad guy, the leader, could easily be hammy, in his nuance-free evil(this is not a complaint), and yet he feels like he belongs in our world - near the end, this does go beyond that, but otherwise, the whole thing is firmly anchored there. We could see this happening. While there is not a lot going on character-wise, what there is, is established, developed and played just right. The score, borrowed from The Dark Knight, is used to great effect. FX are solid, and the reliance on practical ones serves the short well. It increases credibility further.

There is a lot of bloody, graphic, disturbing and violent content in this. I recommend this to any fan of comic books. 8/10

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

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.

Excellent to see Frank Castle return, especially with Thomas Jane at the helm. I wasn't expecting too much when I stumbled on this short, however after seeing it, well, I want another Punisher movie with him in it! Part of Warzone's failure was that it just didn't carry off the dark and brooding atmosphere that Tom Jane projects. Aside from that, the atmosphere of the short itself is really nicely put together, from the exterior street shots to the dreary interiors.

10/10 from me, cant see how this could've been better and let's just hope the studios realise that Tom Jane can be put to better use than bit parts in TV Shows and convince him to reprise his role in another big budget Punisher!