Knuckle Jack

Plot Summary

Jack has never left his small Catskill town. Shadowed by a childhood tragedy, he limps through his days in a lonely haze of drugs, booze and bitterness. At night he paints pictures of dark highways-- different versions of the same nightmarish stark scene-- which he then plants inside the wealthy weekenders' homes he robs in between disability checks. He's not stealing; just "trading art for things they don't need."When Jack is summoned by his mother, the estranged son is surprised when his 8 year old niece Frankie opens the door. Frankie's mother is battling cancer, and Jack begrudgingly takes on the task of caring for the quiet girl. "Don't fuck anything up," he says to her as they head home.Not one to let a little girl cramp his style, Jack carries on business-as-usual, drinking, painting and thieving. Soon Frankie catches on to his mysterious house visits and wants in on the action. Looks like larceny runs in the family.These two banged-up, lonesome souls-- one broken, the other braving a new kind of dark-- burn through the thick Catskill summer. Jack needs his weed; Frankie needs her mom; but before long they need each other. Along the way we meet colorful locals-- dealers, sellers, good-time girls.... all of them, like Jack and Frankie, just hoping to make a buck, make a date, make it to tomorrow. KNUCKLE JACK is a portrait of what we've lost and how we get by. There's an art to survival: A life like Jack's, canvassed in black and washed in despair, paints by its own cruel numbers. But sometimes a tiny crack (or an 8 year-old girl) lets in a sliver of light, and a whole new picture is revealed.