The short film, which is directed by longtime U2 documentarian, and the director of films such as Entropy (one of my guilty favorites) and Gridiron Gang Phil Joanou, and written by Black List writer Chad St. John, follows Jane (Frank Castle aka: The Punisher) as he sets out for the simple task of doing his laundry. However, it seems even a simple task such as this can not be surrounded in bad guys, evil, and the extreme violence that makes you want to see Jane in the Punisher role once again.
At Comic-Con last week, actor Thomas Jane debuted a short film he co-created with director Phil Joanou and writer Chad St. John. The slow-burn movie sees Jane as a nameless, down-and-out guy trying to do a load of laundry in the middle of a crime-infested ghetto. While he fishes for quarters, a prostitute is brutally raped and beaten in an alley, and a group of gangbangers roughs up the one kid in the neighborhood who's chosen education over drug-peddling. Any pop culture junky worth their salt knows where this is going, even if the filmmakers behind Dirty Laundry want their penultimate shot to be a big, gasping reveal: Jane's character grows a conscience and beats the holy hell out of every evildoer in sight, leaving behind a bullet-ridden Punisher t-shirt for the boy he'd just saved.
The The Punisher: Dirty Laundry
The Punisher is the Marvel Universe's go-to psycho vigilante. Over the decades, he has murdered everyone and everything in the name of justice--including all attempts to bring his comic book adventures to the big screen. Traditional heroes like Spider-Man and Captain America have big problems with his methods and motivations, but The Punisher (aka Frank Castle) often does the dirty work they either can't be bothered with or can't be seen doing in public. After all, someone has to clean up untouchable mob bosses while the brightly costumed super-freaks deal with alien invasions.
Instead, we get minutes upon minutes of middling actors playing generic, black hoods and heavy-shouldered shots of Frank Castle doing laundry and buying a Yoo-Hoo. The film asks us to pretend that we're not just waiting around for The Punisher to kill everyone in spectacular fashion; it teases us with a "You've Never Seen a Punisher Movie Like This" attitude. The attitude is justified, but not for the reason Jane and company had hoped.
In a run-down neighborhood, Frank Castle wakes up and exits his van to get his laundry done. On his way to the coin-op laundromat, he witnesses a street gang stop and confront three prostitutes before Goldtooth, the gang leader, takes one of them to a back alley and rapes her. Despite hearing her screams from a distance, Frank minds his business and places his laundry in a washing machine. Minutes later, a boy named DeShawn crosses through the neighborhood and is harassed by the gang while Goldtooth offers him an opportunity to sell drugs for them. When DeShawn refuses, the gang members begin to mug him. Frank walks to a liquor store across the street to get a bottle of Yoo-hoo. There, a handicapped store clerk named Big Mike tells him that two years ago, he witnessed a similar situation and wound up crippled for confronting the gang.
Frank pays for the Yoo-hoo and buys a bottle of Jack Daniel's, which he uses to club the gang members. After killing the thugs, he breaks Goldtooth's right arm and legs before asking him what the difference between justice and punishment is while pouring the whiskey on him. He then pulls out a lighter and places it on the ground before returning to the laundromat. The battered prostitute returns to the scene to pick up the lighter and set the gang leader on fire as Frank walks back to his van with his laundry. DeShawn approaches him to return a t-shirt he dropped, but Frank tells him to keep it. As Frank drives off, the boy unfolds the shirt to reveal the Punisher symbol.
2ff7e9595c
Comentarios