Film #177 - The Punisher (2004)
Viewed June 26, 2006
The Punisher is the second attempt to bring the hard-edged Marvel Comics character to life. The previous version of The Punisher from 1989 starred Dolph Lundgren in the title role and was a decent, if not exactly original, effort. This new version had a much larger budget and, after the success of films like Blade and Spider-Man, much higher expectations. For the most part it succeeds, with only a few misfires preventing it from reaching the heights of the genre.
First the good. The Punisher is very well cast, especially in its lead. Thomas Jane is able to convincingly portray both the violent, forlorn Punisher and the earlier, happier Frank Castle. (This is certainly one area where Lundgren was woefully inadequate. I couldn’t see him rollicking giddily with his family.) Jane seems truly dangerous and handles the darkness that controls Castle with ease. He is only occasionally let down by the script, which sometimes compromises the harsher tone of the Punisher comics for more audience-friendly touches.
John Travolta as the villain Howard Saint lacks some of the appeal that the best villains have in evidence, but effectively portrays his menace. Rebecca Romjin, Ben Foster and John Pinette do well enough with their parts as Castle’s neighbors, but their parts seem contrived, no matter how well they perform them. Laura Harring is stunningly beautiful as Travolta’s wife Livia and she is able to show the manipulitive nature that her name implies. Unfortunately, she’s not given enough to do, eventually reduced to a plot device.
The action in The Punisher is strong and the violence is disturbingly realistic. The filmmakers do take pains to minimize the amount of violence we see on the young, even during the Castle Family Reunion massacre, yet it all still seems to be too much. I was particularly disturbed by the apparent need to up the ante in this regard, as if killing Castle’s wife and child wasn’t enough to send him over the edge.
There are also some stunningly bad parts to the film. Usually it’s where an unexpectedly mild or simplistic characterization suddenly appears in the middle of all the gritty realism. One of note is “The Russian”, a muscular hitman who looks like a comic book character, complete with huge muscles, bright yellow hair and garishly striped shirt. He would probably work looking like that in a comic, but on screen he seems woefully out of place. Another example is the aforemention neighbors who form a new “family” for Castle, completely against the nature of the rest of the film.
Still, none of these things get too much in the way. The main plot is well paced and the twists and turns are often clever and handled well and the cast invests the film with the appropriate attention to detail. Given the Punisher’s naturally violent nature, the filmmakers did a good job of sticking to their guns (so to speak) and not watering the character down too much. Although it’s not a perfect adaptation, it’s better than I expected and a solid effort overall. there’s talk of a sequel to The Punisher and, for once, I’m not concerned. Freed from the need to attract a whole new audience and the solid base of the first film to build on, there’s every reason to think that a sequel could do quite well.