The Punisher

I was surprised how good this movie was, not stupid as I figured. It's another one of those based-on-a-comic book hero films that seem to be popular nowadays (Hellboy, Batman, Sin City, Spiderman, Superman, etc.)

However, this was the not the cartoon-like film I expected. It was more of a pretty brutal revenge-crime movie. It's a rough movie, pure and simple.

Believable? Of course not. Some of the action is ludicrous but the most ridiculous of all - the fight against the huge Russian, is actually the most fun of the action scenes. The rest is just plain mean as the hero's entire family gets wiped out by gunman and "The Punisher" (Thomas Jane) goes after them after almost being killed himself.

A smart aspect of this film was inserting a bit of humor in it, such as the two nerds down the hallway who befriend "The Punisher."

The sometimes-juvenile but interesting action scenes, the diverse characters in here and the humor all combine to make this better than anticipated.

No, it's anything but a thinking man's movie, but it IS entertaining and harmless if you look at everything tongue-in-cheek.

Apart from one baffling and totally infuriating scene (one that was simply lousy and poorly conceived), The Punisher totally defied my initial expectations (that it would suck), and is actually quite good.

Frank Castle (Thomas Jane) is an ex soldier and undercover cop, completing one last job before he leaves the force permanently to spend more time with his family. The job of course goes a little awry and results in the unplanned death of one of the criminals. No biggie, he shouldn't have been a naughty boy in the first place. Only this naughty boy happened to be the son of one Howard Saint (John Travolta) who is a local underworld kingpin and drug-lord. Saint swears revenge on all and sundry… and what revenge it is.

At the behest of his trophy wife Saint orders the wholesale execution of everyone that ever bought Castle a Christmas present. Luckily for them Castle is attending a family reunion so the bad guys can save petrol, and as requested they drop the entire family, Mum, Dad, cousins, Aunties and Uncles on the spot in cold blood. Castle wife and young son are left for near last for dramatic effect, and after a chase it is obvious that they will not appear in any sequel. Castle himself is left for dead, riddled with holes on a burning dock… And this is where the bad guys screw up. Everyone else, and I mean EVERYONE ELSE at the soiree, are left deader than Lindsay Lohan's career, yet they have the primary target at their feet and neglect to put one in his temple just to make sure? Haven't they seen Zombieland? Some mysterious black guy (whose significance I just couldn't get) saves Castle and brings him back to health, and in a cheesy moment Castle just "happens" to find his son's T shirt with the Punisher skull logo on it, weeks after the shootings, on the beach.

Castle somehow gets back to the US unnoticed and sets about plotting his revenge and hitting the bottle, and not always in that order. He moves into what looks on the outside to be a squatter's residence but inside seems to be fully furnished and well maintained apartments. His neighbours are basically three, a fat guy, an "alternative" guy with a bunch of piercings and a chick who might scrub up well after a shower (it's Rebecca Romjin so we know she will).

Castle spends a while coming up with a way to ensure his revenge is particularly sweet, and above all convoluted and largely unnecessary seeing as how in the end he still walks into impossible odds with guns blazing. But it seems there were 60 odd minutes of screen time to fill so let's just go with it. The plan involves working through the chain of command up to Saint via his money, business, 2IC and finally his trophy wife.

Once the wheels are in motion Castle goes public and more or less tells everyone what's going to happen, but for ages neither the cops or the bad guys seem to be able to find him. When he does show up he invariably ends up killing people yet again no cops can catch him, and the forensic guys obviously don't look that hard for DNA or basic evidence.

There is some "more violent than usual in comic book films" action, a great one on one stoush involving an indiscreet and frankly monstrous assassin and a pretty funny faux-torture scene (as funny as torture can be I guess).

Travolta is a pretty good bad guy in this, largely because I think he is no longer a likable good guy unless you're a middle aged woman with recurring Grease flashbacks, and as Howard Saint he is always angry and seems to be talking with a mouthful of cotton wool. Jane is more efficient than I expected, he is pretty solid and believable in the action and fight scenes, plays the gruff p*ssed off loner well and spits out some pretty good, albeit dry, one liners. The final showdown between Castle and multiple bad guys is very entertaining and sees him exacting the appropriate level of revenge… So that's the good bits, but a 7.5 can't be all good.

The bad:

* - The fat supposed comic-relief neighbour who mimes opera is terrible and annoying.

* - In one scene Castle must swerve to avoid the most clichéd reason in cinema, the kid running onto the road chasing a big red ball.

* - The cheesy way they decided to shoehorn the Punisher logo into the climax of the film, forced and distracting.

The awful:

* - A hired assassin comes to kill Castle, only he shows up at the diner where Castle is eating, pulls out a guitar case and… sings him a song first!! Worse than terrible - f*cking annoying is more to the point. I squirm every time it comes up and reach for the remote. Removing this scene and opera-miming fat guy and this is an 8.

This was a pleasant surprise aside from my above whinges, a low key comic book movie with realistic violence and great character foundation. After all what could be more inspiring than watching everyone that features in your personal photo album being butchered in front of you.

Final Rating – 7.5 / 10. Don't be fooled by your pre-conceived opinions, this is better than you might think.

I can't call this a bad movie but its also hard to consider it good. Thomas Jane was a great choice for Frank Castle but he isn't given a chance to show his Punisher off. The story is slow and tries to be a Character study but misses the mark even on that. A little more action and a higher body count would really have helped this film. Travolta gets to ham it up and does a good job as the main Villian but even he wasn't given enough time to really develop the Character. I dont hate the movie.

This wonderful revenge film was acted and directed with complete conviction but still found the time to kick ass. This is one of the best movies I have seen this year and I go to at least one movie a week. The acting was good. I would recommend this movie to everyone. I thought it was going to be some type of 80's action movie, but it turned out to be great movie aimed towards an older crowd. The beginning is a bit slow, but the action really keeps you focused. Thomas Jane did an excellent job as the Punisher and Travolta's performance was much better than I was expecting. This is a movie that thinks so deeply about its conflicts and decisions that there are times when the audience itself feels like it has a personal stake in the outcome. This is by far the best film in the reinvigorated sub-genre of comic-book-to-screen conversions.

"The Punisher" is a shining example of revenge and vigilante-style justice done right. It's also yet another comic book adaptation done properly. I thought this movie was one of the best I have seen in a long time. In the compendium of comic movies, this falls just shy of the two X-Men movies and Spider-Man but easily surpasses Batman, Batman Begins, Superman and The Hulk. The fact that it is an R-rated movie will kill any possible chance of decent box-office numbers, but it was a necessary step to take, and the quality of the movie just makes up for it. Hopefully this was Thomas Jane's breakout role, as he was outstanding and has the potential to be a contender to Ben Affleck, Hugh Jackman, Colin Farrell, and Matt Damon as the next big action star. If you like action movies, check out this movie. If you like comic book adaptations, check out this movie. Heck, if you just like movies in general, The Punisher is two hours well-spent. Like Thomas Jane himself says, "Frank Castle is dead. Long live The Punisher."