What Did Jack Do? (Short)
David Lynch interrogates a monkey. And it’s a two-sided conversation. And it’s a murder investigation. Oh yeah, and David Lynch interrogates a monkey.
We have not gotten enough of David Lynch in the 2000s. Well, mainstream audiences have not gotten enough David Lynch. There was his Oscar-nominated “Mulholland Drive,” his 2006 film, “INLAND EMPIRE,” and 2018’s “Twin Peaks: The Return” (which, admittedly, I have yet to watch, mainly because I do not have Showtime). On his website, he has done shorts, however, and made other materials available. “What Did Jack Do?” is a 2017 short that Netflix recently made available, and it’s a welcome surprise for fans.
Feel free to reread the first sentences to get a recap of this short film’s story. David Lynch is a cop who interrogates a monkey in a murder investigation. The dialogue on both ends is simple, and yet, abstract, as it includes references to a chicken. Meanwhile, the monkey has been waiting for coffee. They are at a train station; it’s obvious the monkey was looking to skip town.
This is not necessarily for the Lynch novice, although I can see people less familiar with him enjoying this 17-minute bit of absurdity from the director. Lynch is underrated as a screen presence, and this feels like a riff on his near-deaf FBI agent from “Twin Peaks.” He and Jack Cruz, who voices the monkey, make this an engaging and entertaining watch, with the black-and-white cinematography giving it a fittingly old school noir feel. It’s hard not to enjoy this film, especially when it gets to its wacky finale.
