An undercover FBI agent becomes a vigilante assassin and sets out to unleash his wrath upon the corrupt businessman who slaughtered his entire family at a reunion.
Marvel has come a long way since “The Punisher” was released in 2004. Looking back now, I think the movie works better as a straight-up action flick, instead of being constantly linked to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After all, most of the characters in the MCU are superheroes with superhero abilities. Frank Castle is a man who has lost his family and seeks vengeance on the people who turned his life upside down. Not exactly superhero material, more like an antihero. He’s smart, ingenious when he needs to be, but still watches out for those who need it.
After retiring from the FBI, Frank’s intention is to move to England with his wife Maria (Samantha Mathis) and young son Will (Marcus Johns). Unbeknownst to Frank, during his last job, a smuggling operation, things quickly went south and a bunch of bad guys were killed in the ensuing crossfire, including Bobby Saint (James Carpinello), the son of mafia boss Howard Saint (John Travolta). Frank travels to Florida to spend some time with his parents before moving across the pond and while he is there, Saint’s men turn up and kill everyone, including Frank. Or so they think. Frank manages to survive the killing spree and is nurtured back to health by a local fisherman.
Many months later, Frank takes up residence in an abandoned apartment in town. When the local police and FBI prove incapable of bringing justice to Saint’s men for the murder of Frank’s family, he takes matters into his own hands and slowly and methodically, begins to tear Saint’s family and business apart. As Howard’s suspicion and mistrust within his own organization steadily grows, including his family and very own wife, Livia (Laura Harring), he eventually succumbs to paranoia and starts killing off those closest to him, as he follows a trail left for him by Frank himself. By the end, the two men will face off against each other and see who comes out on top.
Thomas Jane was fine in the role of Frank Castle but he was very stoic and unemotional, for the most part. While he is indeed a fine actor, I felt he was miscast here and an actor with a higher range of emotions should have gotten the much-coveted role. One aspect of the film that bothered me from the first time I saw it, was the fake paper trail Frank leads Howard down. While it was executed flawlessly, insinuating that Frank’s wife and his best friend were having an affair, by the end of the movie, instead of revealing everything to Howard as a lie, Frank shoots him, seriously injuring him in the process. While he is on the ground agonizing from the gunshot, Frank finally exposes the truth, that he set everything up and that his wife and best friend were not having an affair but Howard is in so much pain, everything Frank tells him literally falls on deaf ears. The big reveal becomes a big letdown. Everything Frank worked so hard to accomplish, while it served its purpose for him and gave him the desired result, Howard never knew and that took part of the enjoyment away, knowing the bad guy killed his own wife and best friend for nothing.
Travolta pretty much sleepwalks his way through the movie, he frowns a lot, grunts, shouts expletives, but never once does anything menacing to make you really hate him. Will Patton, as Quentin Glass, Howard’s best friend, and lead henchman, does a much more convincing job as a bad guy. He can be suave when he needs to be but can torture you to death if you don’t give him what he wants. If Travolta and Patton had switched roles, I feel that this iteration of “The Punisher” would probably be the best. As it stands, it’s standard action fare, much better than the 1989 version starring Dolph Lundgren, but not by much. At least that was cheesy fun, this adaptation takes itself way too seriously.
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Frank Castle, aka The Punisher (Ray Stevenson), turns the streets of New York City red as he wages a one-man war against the crime syndicate responsible for the death of his wife and two kids.
I never saw “Punisher: War Zone” until Lionsgate sent me this review copy to watch. Honestly, I was not blown away by 2004’s “The Punisher” and the trailers for this did absolutely nothing for me. I like Ray Stevenson but back in 2008 upon this film’s release, he wasn’t as well known as he is nowadays and that’s a shame because I actually enjoyed this interpretation much more than its two predecessors. It is billed as a direct sequel to the 2004 version and we follow Frank Castle as he exacts revenge on those who deserve it.
Five years after the murder of his family, Frank is known around the country as The Punisher, a one-man army who will stop at nothing to kill those who prey upon the weak and the innocent. He is their protector and not even the police can stop him. When Frank raids the home of a big mob boss and kills him and his family and friends, one of his top men, Billy Russotti (Dominic West), manages to escape into the recycling plant hideout next to the house. When he encounters Frank, they have a brief fight on top of a walkway but Frank knocks him into a glass-crushing machine and proceeds to turn the machine on. He leaves just as the police arrive and left for dead, Billy actually survives, now grotesquely deformed.
Having escaped police custody, Billy, who now calls himself “Jigsaw,” travels to a mental institution where his brother James, also known as “Loony Bin Jim” (Doug Hutchison), is housed up. He breaks him out and with the help of his brother and two colleagues, they swear to track down The Punisher and kill him. Meanwhile, Frank has just learned that an undercover agent was at the house he shot up in the beginning and feeling guilty for his death, he tries to speak to the agent’s widow, Angela (Julie Benz), and young daughter Grace (Stephanie Janusauskas). Angela knows who Frank is but wants nothing to do with him. When Billy and his brother kidnap Angela and Grace and hold them ransom in a dilapidated building downtown, they tell Frank they will trade the mother and daughter for his life but he knows they will kill them anyway so he loads up with everything he has, and makes his way downtown.
Ray Stevenson should have played Frank Castle in both movies, not that Thomas Jane is a bad actor, he just seemed wrong for this part. Stevenson is taller, bulkier, more muscular, and more intimidating, and for this sort of narrative, absolutely perfect in the role. Colin Salmon, who came from the Pierce Brosnan Bond movies, does well as an FBI agent who wants to take Castle down for the killing of his partner, even though he knows it was an accident. Wayne Knight appears briefly as Micro, Frank’s ally who supplies him with all the latest technologically advanced weapons but also friendship. Dominic West chews up the scenery as Jigsaw but after a while, you get tired of his incessant cackling and cumbersome wisecracks. Doug Hutchison, who was so cowardly and scheming in “The Green Mile,” here tries to employ the Hannibal Lecter school of villainy and while he has moments, overall, he fails at infusing his character with anything that resembles a monster, instead, settling for a carbon copy caricature. Now onto Netflix’s “The Punisher,” starring Jon Bernthal, maybe that will live up to its hype!
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