I may be a bit biased, but when I originally watched Thomas Jane as the Punisher, I experienced an undeniably wonderful sensation in my pants region. While it’s fair to say he probably doesn’t have this exact effect on most men, there’s just something about Jane’s portrayal of Frank Castle that gets action movie fans whipped into a frenzy. So when The Punisher reboot never got a second chance, we all slunk back to our dreary, non-exploding everyday lives and quietly mourned a missed opportunity… until this week’s debut of #DirtyLaundry. This ‘fan film’, headed by Jane, poses the question: “What’s the difference between justice and punishment?”
#DIRTYLAUNDRY – Thomas Jane, You Glorious Bastard, You
Originally seen at ComicCon, this fantastic short film is a labour of love created and carried by Jane, producer Adi Shankar, director Phil Joanou, and the delightfully nerdy Ron Perlman. The unfortunate news is that the brilliant #DirtyLaundry has absolutely nothing to do with a new Punisher movie in the works, nor does Jane claim that this is an attempt to reignite interest in the franchise for himself. Instead, all we can do is gleefully enjoy a bloody smash fest of all things delightfully manly and deliciously Jane, and hope this video goes viral enough to be taken real notice of. Unless of course, Thomas Jane does what we’re all daydreaming about and shanks his way into a Hollywood boardroom and strategically applies some persuasive birdshot to the situation. Since that’s fairly unlikely and pretty much a guarantee that we’d never see our hero again, we can at least enjoy this homage to our favourite moody, unbalanced vigilante.
“I wanted to make a fan film for a character I’ve always loved and believed in – a love letter to Frank Castle & his fans. It was an incredible experience with everyone on the project throwing in their time just for the fun of it. It’s been a blast to be a part of from start to finish — we hope the friends of Frank enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.” — Thomas Jane
If you don’t enjoy gratuitous violence, gravelly voiced anti heroes, and Ron Perlman being Ron Perlman but this time in a wheelchair so it’s different (war never changes, kids), I don’t recommend turning this up or watching it at work. We definitely enjoyed it.
#DirtyLaundry is being passed around largely on Twitter and YouTube. You can find the relevant Twitter handles below if you’d like to follow more on this ridiculously awesome project.
https://twitter.com/thomasjane
https://twitter.com/adishankarbrand
https://twitter.com/chadstjohn
https://twitter.com/pjoanou
