Theatrical Review of Punisher: War Zone

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If you´re not a comic book fan, you might be wondering why The Punisher is now getting his third shot at establishing a movie franchise. Basically just an angry guy with lots of guns, he hardly seems to fit alongside Marvel stars such as Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man or even Daredevil.

But along with Wolverine, the Punisher (AKA Frank Castle) is one of the two most important characters launched in Marvel Comics´ bronze age (for simplicity´s sake, just think of it as the 1970s) and, like Wolverine, he was a major reason for the rise in popularity of the hyper-violent comic book anti-hero. Both characters barely made a splash when, within a few months of each other they were introduced as minor one-shot villains for the Hulk and Spider-man, respectively. But they didn´t fade into obscurity like so many baddies-of-the-month. Wolverine caught on quickly with the New X-Men a year after his appearance in Hulk and within a few years became one of Marvel´s most popular characters. By the 1980s, a guest appearance by Wolverine in any Marvel comic book guaranteed a sales boost.

The Punisher lingered in the shadows for much longer. After receiving an origin story and a few spotty appearances alongside more established characters, writer Steven Grant and artist Mike Zeck launched the Punisher mini-series in 1985, creating an immediate sensation that transformed the Marvel Universe. As bloody as Wolverine could get, he was still a hero who pushed up against the line but never quite crossed it: good guys don´t kill. The Punisher killed. He was far from the first comic book character to do so, but he was the first Marvel character that did it for a living and wound up getting his own top-selling monthly series which soon became two monthly series and then three.

The Punisher got his first big screen turn just a few years later with the ill-considered 1989 Dolph Lundgren vehicle which we will not discuss any further. Burned by so many failed comic book movies, Marvel never even attempted to revamp the Punisher until the sudden flowering of the genre with the massive success of the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises.

Fans were then treated to the 2004 "Punisher" re-launch which quite wisely didn´t acknowledge the 1989 disaster. Starring Thomas Jane, this "Punisher" was a strange bird. Though it borrowed characters and even direct scenes from the then-current run by Garth Ennis, now considered the definitive Punisher scribe, the character in the film doesn´t even remotely resemble the Frank Castle of the comic books. He´s an ex-FBI agent based in Tampa Bay (Tampa Bay???) and he shows remarkable restraint (restraint???) when pursuing the bad guys. This is a Punisher who refused to cross the line and thus isn´t a Punisher at all. Worst of all, the film takes a half hour to tell his origin story, thirty grueling, pointless, idiotic minutes to lead up to the slaughter of his wife and child that provides the trauma that transforms Frank into the Punisher.

One good thing that can be said about the latest incarnation, "Punisher: War Zone" (2008) is that it gets the origin story dead right. This film begins with the Punisher in action. A brief glimpse during the opening title sequence reminds of his murdered family, but this film doesn´t dawdle in a misguided attempt to create sympathy for its main character. Later in the film, Frank visits their gravesite and we see a few brief glimpses of that terrible day in the park and… that´s it. There´s killing to be done.

Of all three "Punisher" films, Lexi Alexander´s newest take is the only one that actually gets the character of the Punisher right. He is not a hero. He kills people. Because he´s angry. And he´s going to stay angry and he´s going to keep killing until someone kills him. Sure, he has a code too: he doesn´t kill cops or other good people, but he is, basically, your garden variety psychopath, a Travis Bickle with huge biceps and special ops training. His job is killing. His hobby is killing. His three favorite things are killing, killing, and long walks on the beach that end with killing. As played by Ray Stevenson, the first actor cast in the part who actually looks like the Punisher, he is a brooding, humorless but not entirely amoral brute. And that´s just about right.

Unfortunately that´s about all that "Punisher: War Zone" gets right. Frank is pitted against one of his earliest comic book antagonists, Jigsaw, a pretty boy mobster who gets badly disfigured by one of Frank´s typical violent outbursts and vows revenge on him. The film hews surprisingly close to Jigsaw´s origin story but that´s where the similarities end. Jigsaw, played by Dominick West of "The Wire" fame, is what the Joker would look like if he was played by Ray Liotta. He is also saddled with an even more psychotic brother named Looney Bin Jim (Doug Hutchinson) a new creation for the movie who is an amalgam of Hannibal Lecter and Daffy Duck.

The film kicks off with Frank suffering an identity crisis after he accidentally kills an FBI agent thus breaking his code. Fortunately he´s not the contemplative type and he bounces back into form, protecting the agent´s family from Jigsaw and his cronies. The family consists of Angela (Julie Benz) and her sweet daughter Grace (Stephanie Janusauskas) who happens to be the same age as Frank´s murdered little girl. Their presence, and predictable use as hostages, makes Frank´s killing rampage a little more palatable for audiences but at least mildly annoying to hardcore fans. The Punisher doesn´t need excuses. However, Alexander and her team of screenwriters avoid potential disaster by refusing to establish even a hint of romantic interest between Frank and Angela. The Punisher´s not a glass of wine by the fireplace kind of guy.

The film´s major, and ultimately crippling weakness, is Alexander´s inability to settle on an aesthetic. A former fight choreographer, she throws everything and the kitchen sink into the film. First Frank shows up Batman-style, materializing out of the dark, and then he´s hanging upside down from a chandelier and spinning in digitally-enhanced super speed as he mows down mobsters. And of course we simply must follow the trend and randomly introduce some parkour into the mix. It´s essential to go over-the-top in a Punisher movie, but when Frank literally punches somebody´s face through the back of his skull (and I mean literally) it only induces laughter.

Without a consistent style, "Punisher: War Zone" never establishes a real identity. Though the final gunfight is suitably bloody, it simply has no impact because the film, like a few of its fight scenes, has simply bounced all over the place without rhyme or reason. And by the time Jigsaw and Looney Bin Jim turn from crazy to downright laughable, any sense of real menace (or purpose) has been drained from the story.

Ray Stevenson is competent enough as the taciturn anti-hero, but most of the performances are pretty dreadful. Over and over again, both good guys and bad guys are filmed in tight close-up as they growl (not-so) snappy one-liners: think Tim Roth in "The Hulk." One unlikely exception is Wayne Knight ("Newman!!!") who is surprisingly not played for comic relief at all as Punisher´s logistics man and supplier Micro. He´s thoroughly convincing as the sidekick to the most messed-up super-hero in the game and it´s unfortunate that his part was obviously whittled down in the editing room.

There´s one other strange element in this film that´s worth mentioning. An atheist subtext creeps up from time to time. In one scene Angela says to Jigsaw: "I swear to God." He leans down to little Grace and asks, "How about you little girl, do you want to swear on any of YOUR imaginary friends?" Later, a Jesus Saves sign appears and the "Jesus" winks out just as the Punisher is about to mete out justice. Is there a subtle message in "Punisher: War Zone?" Maybe we´ll find out on the DVD commentary track.

The Punisher would seem to be on the easiest of all comic book characters to translate to the big screen, but so far he´s oh-for-three. Considering the film´s miserable box office failure, he may not get a fourth chance for a while. Meanwhile, though he´s far from the peak of his popularity in the late 80s and early 90s, the Punisher continues to plug away each month in comic books, and he´s not going away anytime soon. So don´t bet against seeing him on the big-screen again. After all, Uwe Boll is always looking for work.

A 5/10 on the DVDTown scale.

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