My first thought upon hearing The Punisher was being made into a movie was, “Not again.” Hollywood tried it once in 1989 with Dolph Lundgren and the movie bombed--big. But that’s what they get for changing just about every detail about the character, including leaving out the most important detail, the skull. So the movie tanked and I thought that would be that. But with the recent flood of Marvel movies, X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN, HULK, DAREDEVIL, they must have decided to give it another shot and hopefully get it right this time.

The Punisher is Frank Castle, former Special Forces GI, retired cop, who’s out to spend the rest of his days with his family. But when his wife and children are gunned down by the mob--they were witness to an execution, and have to be silenced--Frank abandons his former life and becomes The Punisher, a true vigilante who sets out to destroy those who would hurt others. THE PUNISHER comic was a fan favorite in the late 80s, early 90s, when the ultra-violent good guy was in vogue, but over time the character grew a little stale and he was eventually “killed off”. When Garth Ennis (PREACHER, HITMAN) took over with his “Welcome Back, Frank” storyline, everything changed and The Punisher was big man on the block once again. In fact, that story did such wonders for Frank Castle, it was used as the basis for the plot of the movie. Some of the details have changed, in the movie Frank takes part in a sting that ends with the death of Bobby Saint (played by James Carpinello, who also played the brother, John), son of the town’s leading criminal, Howard Saint, played by John Travolta. To get back at Frank, Saint orders the death of Castle’s entire family. And in this case it’s not just wife and kids, but extended family as well. After his retirement--the Saint case was his last--Frank and family convene to their “compound” in Puerto Rico where they’re tracked down and slaughtered--parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone present is mowed down. Castle is left for dead, but manages to escape and recover. Months later he returns to claim his weapons, and return home to seek his vengeance. Another change, the one that really bugged me and most other fans of the character, is that the location has been moved from New York--home of almost every other Marvel super hero--to Tampa, Florida. Now why would they pick Florida? I wondered. The explanation writer/director Jonathan Hensleigh (screenwriter on ARMAGEDDON, DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE, THE SAINT) gave was that, with only $30 million dollars and 50 days to shoot, they simply didn’t have the time or money to film New York and, given those constraints and Howard Saint’s business as a money launderer, Florida made sense. I agree and in the end the setting isn’t really that important anyway. In the comic, The Punisher has traveled all over the globe tracking down and killing criminals, so a move to Florida isn’t THAT big a deal.

The choice of Thomas Jane (DREAMCATCHER, THE SWEETEST THING) for Frank Castle was one that surprised me--mostly because I couldn’t imagine the blonde-haired Jane as the black-haired Castle, but once again I was totally wrong and if anyone was made to play Castle it was Thomas Jane. His face is so full of expression, so subtle at times, he’s able to convey so much with so little effort. Not to mention he trained for months before production began and by the time filming began he’d made himself into Frank Castle in every way.

Travolta as the villain is always fun to see, just because he’s such a huge star, I like seeing him step back a little, not play the hero, and star in such a low-budget movie ($30 million low budget? For a movie of this size, yes. Hensleigh says in one of the behind-the-scenes clips that the normal budget for a movie like this would have been closer to $100 million, and the smallest budget he’d had to date for an action movie was about $60 million).

Hensleigh drew for his inspiration from the old school action flicks, Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, and copies a lot of his shots from those movies (ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA is one he sites several times). He says at one point he has a real disdain for the music video/TV commercial way of filming, and he wanted to make a steadier movie with fewer cuts and more focus on the characters.

THE PUNISHER is written and shot like a true revenge movie. The stunts are all done, as they say, “old school” and there’s almost NO CGI (a few scenes were touched up here and there, a sign was added in one shot and a few explosions at the end were made a little grander, but for the most part there was no CGI), and that’s just one more thing to love about this movie. With The Punisher character, it would have been so easy, and expected, to go with the slow motion gunshots and the wild acrobatics in the fight scenes, but Hensleigh opted for the traditional route. The one big fight scene, with wrestler Kevin Nash as “The Russian”, was performed by the actors, Nash and Jane, and it’s just a simple two-man brawl through Castle’s apartment with people getting their heads slammed into refrigerator doors and hit in the stomach with metal bars, and thrown through walls. No flash and fire like the rest of the “super hero” movies of late. But then, The Punisher’s not really a super hero in that sense, is he? He has no powers, no secret identity. He makes no secret of who he is and what he’s doing. He’s Frank Castle, he’s The Punisher, and he punishes criminals, usually by killing them, plain and simple.

But there’s also that threat, in a movie like this, of taking yourself TOO seriously. With Garth Ennis as the original spark for the story, that’s not a threat. Anyone who’s ever read his work on PREACHER knows how true that is. When Frank begins his work, he moves into a slum apartment, occupied by three other tenants, Joan (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), Spacker Dave (Ben Foster, IDENTITY) and Bumpo (stand-up comedian John Pinette) who provide the much-needed comic relief in a lot of scenes. A movie as dark as this--come on, he’s avenging the death of his entire family. They ran down his wife and son, they shot him in the chest and blew up the peer where they’d left him for dead--you need something to lighten the mood every once in a while and these three serve that purpose, as well as making Frank feel once again like he’s part of the world. Once his mission begins, he’s pulling further and further away from reality, and the other tenants help to ground him again.

I can see this movie as just a beginning, a way to see the birth of this character before he sets out to do his real work. By the movie’s end, his mission over, he realizes there’s more to be done and has fully embraced this role of the Punisher. So I can easily imagine this story continuing through to a few more movies, but, as with the comic, the danger in a character like this is of running out of stories. There are countless opportunities to find the next big crime boss in the next big city, but in the end how’s it gonna play out? Frank wins the day and kills the bad guy. Castle doesn’t fight super villains like the other heroes, the options are limited and if this franchise continues too long I see it getting stale and ridiculous, so my hope is they don’t take it any further than 1--maybe 2--sequels, but no further.


The DVD is a welcome treat, only 1 disc and the extras don’t take any more than a couple hours to watch. There’s a behind-the-scenes look at the stunts, a behind-the-scenes that covers the entire production, plus interviews with Gerry Conway, Garth Ennis, and other Punisher creators over the years. There are only 2 deleted scenes--which I thought was a cheat; Hensleigh says more than once there was an entire 30-minute subplot taken out of the movie to keep it at 2 hours or below (it‘s 2 hrs, 3 min), and we only get 2 stupid deleted scenes? And The Punisher’s in neither of them. Both scenes are under two minutes long. A director’s cut would have been nice, but since we didn’t get that, give us SOMETHING. Two scenes? Don’t bother me with such nonsense. The commentary track is with writer/director Hensleigh. Having Jane or any of the other actors present would have been nice, but Hensleigh manages to give us a lot of insight into the movie as we listen, and is even able to talk about and either accept or refute some of the criticisms the movie received when it was released.

While it made sense at the time--The Punisher is a HUGE character in the Marvel universe--it still seems an odd choice given the fact The Punisher is JUST a man, released in the midst of The Hulk, Daredevil, and Spider-Man movies. But everyone really came through and not only made a very faithful adaptation of the material, but also made a movie that’s fun to watch and never gets boring (seen it 3 times now). The Punisher is a true anti-hero, and anyone who’s ever felt helpless in the face of being wronged by someone will get this character and what he stands for. Hell of a job and I can’t wait to see what the sequel holds.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age