“The Punisher” is a nice introductory film for what looks to be an important franchise for Lionsgate.
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My brother-in-law Craig is a big Punisher fan. It isn´t uncommon for him to put on the leather trench coat, Punisher t-shirt and ride around on his motorcycle for Halloween. I will admit that I am far from being a comic book fan. Sure, I love the old standbys like Spidey and Batman. In fact, "Batman" is one of my favorite film franchises of all time. However, when it comes down to comic books, I collected G.I. Joe and The Transformers exclusively when I was a kid. I was all about being besieged by Hasbro toys and marketing to determine which comic books I thought where hip and worth my seventy five cents. Yes, I am excited to see the upcoming Michael Bay film "The Transformers" and yes I know it is a Michael Bay film. The same could not be said about "The Punisher." I had no interest to see the film and I remember getting scorned by brother-in-law Craig about how I was missing out on a good time.
It could be said that good things happen to those who wait. The good thing here being I received a nice shiny copy of "The Punisher" on Blu-Ray to review for you, our faithful DVDTown readers. Before diving into the body of this review I am going to come clean and say that the white-trash version of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is my idea of a comic book fantasy and my favorite part of the film, but all-in-all I was entertained beyond expectation by "The Punisher." It was a nicely-acted action film that was a nice re-introduction to the character on film that wasn´t quite as powerful as the incredible "Batman Begins," but falls in the same vein of comic book re-inventions. Here we saw the fall of Frank Castle and the slow rise of the man as he first sought out revenge, but before the closing crawl started to roll, found his destiny as the Punisher.
Frank Castle is brought to life brilliantly by "Frank Castle." He trounces the job done by Dolph Lundgren back in 1989 (when "Batman" was also released as a new franchise). I remembered seeing Jane in a few films over the years and he did a fine voiceover job for the game "Gun." Jane reminds me tremendously of Christopher Lambert back in his "Fortress" days. He is a tough character that is very believable as a highly trained and effective FBI agent that must rise as a revenge driven superhero bent on revenge whose only super powers are his vast arsenal and tortured soul. Jane does a fine job of showing his Wild Turkey drowned sorrow and is as good a casting decision as Frank Castle as Christian Bale was as Batman. I do not believe "The Punisher" would have worked as a film without Jane behind the black t-shirt.
What I did find that was a bit disturbing and odd in the film was the flatmates Frank Castle shared in his rundown disgrace of an apartment. Ben Foster is the highly pierced gaming nerd Dave who has a great deal of self-confidence issues and rarely leaves his apartment for social reasons. Jon Pinette is Bumbo, the overweight cook of the group. Then, there is Rebecca. You can dress her down and take her makeup away and she is still stunning as Joan. Joan is a battered young woman who always meets the wrong men and is constantly fleeing their abusive ways. The three learn who their mysterious apartment building neighbor is and help to keep his presence their a secret, but to also pull them into their ´family´ and show him that he can still find a happy existence and help him away from his bottles of Wild Turkey whiskey and away from the torture he places himself in. Joan finds romantic intentions towards him. This whole idea of the Punisher living in an apartment building with a band of social outcasts didn´t settle with me. I accepted it only because of the lovely Rebecca Romijn.
For a bad guy, there is John Travolta. Mr. Travolta seems like a kind and good man. I once had the pleasure of enjoying desert his personal cook made for him during a trip he made to the midstate to film "Lucky Numbers." I unfortunately did not get to meet him, but his private plan was handled by my youngest sister who not only had the pleasure of talking to him on a couple occasions, but also being rewarded with the tasty pecan treat. For the good impression he has left on my family as a human being, Travolta has not left a great impression on me as a villain. "Broken Arrow" was just plain bad. His over-the-top performance scares me to this day. "Face/Off" and "Swordfish" didn´t paint a pretty picture for him as being an effective bad guy either. Let us not even discuss "Battlefield Earth." I´d have to say that in "The Punisher," he put forth his best villainous effort yet. Watching his downfall during the final moments made you feel almost bad for him, yet you couldn´t wait to see Frank Castle take him out. Finally, Travolta made me want his character to die for the character and not for the performance.
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[release]19116[/release]