The Punisher: Dirty Laundry (2012) Review

 

The Punisher: Dirty Laundry (2012)

Dirty Laundry follows Frank Castle, who is forced to intervene when a group of thugs start attacking locals as he does his laundry.

This short fan film, which is somehow almost a decade old now, did what many Punisher fans have wanted for awhile and that’s making Thomas Jane, the Punisher of many of our childhoods, totally kickass. It’s such a Frank Castle story and setting too, with its chaotic environment pairing well with his menial chores, forcing the world-weary and reluctant antihero to finally step in and deliver on his own brand of ‘justice’. And this particular short captures the essence of the character spectacularly, giving the victims the choice in the fate of their abusers, and not being revenge, but punishment.

The action is also impressively well done, looking flashy but gruesome, something that is surprising given the budget. The nitpicker in me does have to point out that bottle of Jack is hilariously unbreakable after beating the dogshit out of 9 people with it, plus Jack isn’t flammable, but I’ll let it pass because it looked super cool.

No clue how, but they managed to nab both Ron Perlman and Thomas Jane for this, and so little casting choices like that along with good performances from Sammi Rotibi and Karlin Walker made this believable and a total treat. Jane has such an incredible way of portraying hopelessness, loss, and rage with one expression, making this rugged Punisher such a good addition to the less than stellar cast of actors to try him out.

The Punisher: Dirty Laundry, directed by Phil Joanou (who also did that awesome Power Rangers one), is a short but effective fan film that takes that obvious darkness of Jane’s Frank Castle and uses it to perfection to create an even darker take that just goes to show how big of a fan Jane is of the character.

8.7/10