The Punisher (2004)

The Punisher (2004)

Release Date: April 16, 2004

Next up is the Marvel Universe’s resident gun nut, The Punisher. Given the character's status as an anti-hero, it may not be a surprise to learn that his film is inspired by the likes of Death Wish.

Frank Castle is a police officer who works undercover at sting operations. Because of his line of work, he and his family are required to move frequently for their safety, and this time the family are moving to London, but before then, they’re going to a family reunion in Puerto Rico. However, this holiday is set to be ruined, not by misplaced plane tickets or overbooked hotels, but by nasty mob boss Howard Saint. Frank’s last sting operation ended in a shootout in which the target, Howard’s son Bobby, was killed, and the grieving parents want revenge, which they get by crashing the reunion and killing everyone there.

Fortunately, Frank is harder than a titanium rhinoceros and is able to survive being shot several times, beaten, then left to die on a pier doused in petrol and set alight. After being nursed back to health, Frank returns to the house his family was staying in to take a skull shirt his son had given him as a gift and his father’s antique pistol collection. The guns are added to Frank’s impressively sized collection at home, which he kept as souvenirs of his time fighting in the Gulf War. (The film is set in the present day, so his backstory was updated slightly from the comics, where he fought in Vietnam instead.) After learning that no one was imprisoned for the attack on his family, Frank decides to take matters into his own hands, and do to Howard Saint what Saint did to him.

As the Punisher, Frank sets about getting a mole among Saint’s ranks, ruins his money laundering operation, which severs Saint’s ties with the Cuban gangsters whose money he was handling, and framing Saint’s wife as having an affair with Saint’s best friend, who is a closet homosexual. When he isn’t working, he’s living in a grotty apartment drinking and trying to avoid contact with the apartment’s other residents, troubled waitress Joan, Dave, whose face is full of piercings and Bumpo, an overweight man who enjoys cooking and listening to classical music. Frank grows closer to the trio despite himself when they ask for his help throwing out an abusive ex-boyfriend of Joan’s who threatens her with a knife one night. Upon learning that Frank Castle is alive, he sends two assassins to kill him. The first one plays some country music on his guitar before attacking.

Sadly, his guitar case doesn’t have guns in it.

The second is a mountain of a man, known as the Russian, who interrupts dinner to hand Frank his ass on a platter. He is defeated when he tries to strangle Frank too close to the stove, allowing Frank to grab a saucepan full of boiling water and throw it in his face before pushing him down the stairs. Howard Saint snaps when Frank finishes his affair ploy, leading Saint to stab his friend and throw his wife off a bridge into the path of an oncoming train, with neither of them having any idea what they were supposed to have done, since Saint was in a murderous rage and refused to explain anything. Remember kids, poor communication kills. The mob come to the apartment in search of Frank, but he is hidden by Dave, who refuses to tell the baddies where he is, despite having his piercings pulled out with pliers.

To finish his revenge, Frank heads to Saint’s nightclub and kills all the mobsters there, as well as Howard’s other son, John Saint, who is forced to hold up a mine in his hand without lowering his arm, otherwise the mine will explode. His arm gets tired fast. Eventually, only Howard Saint remains. He has lost everything, just as Frank Castle did. The only thing left to take is his life, and the Punisher takes it in as show-offy a way as possible. Specifically, he ties Saint to the bumper of his car by his legs, and sets it to roll into the nightclub car park, where the cars have been wired to explode in the shape of the Punisher’s skull emblem.

 Imagine it combined with the finale of the 1812 Overture. Fun times!

The film is going for a darker tone than past Marvel films, which is appropriate for the Punisher as an anti-hero who battles the good guys almost as often as the bad guys at times. However, this film does a better job of sticking to the darker tone than Daredevil did, due to the toning down of the sillier elements, and reining in suspension of disbelief. The only real concession towards comic book excess are the climax, which is admittedly pretty cool, and the origin story being turned up to 11, which doesn’t work quite as well. In the comics, only Frank’s wife and son were killed, due to their being witnesses of a mob hit. Giving the villain a more active role in the origin works for the film, since the Punisher has few recurring enemies due to his tendency to kill them, but the killing of everyone in his family threatens to take the focus away from Frank and put it on the villains. Fortunately, the film is wise enough to keep the focus on Frank’s wife and son in this scene, because the audience isn’t going to sympathise that much more for Frank losing a number of extended family members who don’t appear outside this scene in addition to close family. Apologies to Great Aunt Prudence Castle, a haggard old crone of 97, the type who’s lived at least a decade too long and seems to leave the retirement home only for family get-togethers where she complains about political correctness while saying racist things about the black lodger the Parkers next door had for a week in August 1952.

Another point of note is the Russian, who is very different personality wise from his portrayal in the comics. Normally, I would complain about this and ask why didn’t the filmmakers use a more obscure but better fitting character instead, but this time I’ll make an exception. In the comics, the Russian is a very silly character, a childish man who speaks broken English and loves America and capitalism despite supposedly being a communist. His understanding of communism can be summed up with “Thor is a communist because he has a big hammer.” In his downtime, he is the head of the Daredevil fan club, Smolensk branch, and wears women’s clothing. He’s pretty much Heavy from Team Fortress 2 as a superhero fanboy. That description should have made it clear that a faithful portrayal of the character wouldn’t fit the mood of the film at all.

  See what I mean?

This is not to say that it’s all doom and gloom a la Hulk, though. There is the odd bit of humour, but it’s black humour in keeping with the comics. The best example would be the scene in which Frank tortures his mole by hanging him upside down from the ceiling, describing in great detail the sensation of a blowtorch applied to human skin, then using it to cook a steak while rubbing an ice lolly on the man’s back. “Isn’t science fun, Micky?”

Thomas Jane puts in a good performance in the lead role, able to portray both the loving family man and the hardened vigilante. Despite all the terrible things he does, he never quite falls into being unlikeable or unsympathetic. Seeing his interactions with his neighbours helps humanise him, making him more than a man with a gun. Speaking of guns, the action element is surprisingly downplayed, with action scenes tending to be quite short for the most part instead of bullets all over the place. The action scenes are quite satisfying nonetheless. To conclude, your enjoyment of The Punisher will likely depend on your feelings towards action films. If you enjoy them, there might be something to your liking here. If not, being adapted from a comic book character probably won’t be enough to change your mind.

Next Time: Oh my God, it’s Alfred Molina!

Bonus: A sequel was planned, but after an extended stay in Development Hell, it became a reboot, Punisher: War Zone instead. Fortunately, the tie-in game on PS2 and Xbox served as a sequel to this film. In the game, John Saint was revealed to have survived the mine explosion, but it destroyed his face, leading him to become Jigsaw and break into Stark Tower to steal a suit of Iron Man armour. Frank wins and kills him properly this time, thus answering the question of who would win in a fight between the Punisher and Iron Man. Other bosses included the Russian, who was now more in line with the sillier incarnation from the comics, Kingpin, Bullseye, and Bushwhacker.