O Justiceiro: Roupa Suja

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'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

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?

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

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