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The Punisher is a remake of a 1989 flick starring Dolph Lundgren and is based on yet another Marvel comic. Besides the rather caricature supporting characters there is not much in The Punisher that points towards a comic adapted for the big screen. The main character, Frank Castle (Tom Jane), doesn’t even have super or special powers, although it is rather admirable that he manages to survive just about every attempt made on his life.
Frank Castle is a special agent who works undercover in order to intercept criminal transactions and put those concerned behind bars. On his final job he is responsible for the death of the son of gangster Howard Saint (John Travolta). Before Castle sets off to London to start a new life, he travels to Puerto Rico for a family reunion. Saint sends his men over there and slaughters Castle’s entire family, including his parents, wife and son. Castle is determined to get revenge and turns into a merciless killer.
The Punisher is the motion picture debut of director Jonathan Hensleigh and, although enjoyable, is full of clichés, even though it is hard these days to come up with anything remotely original. What gets annoying though, is that some of the supporting characters are real caricatures. When Castle moves to a dingy apartment in Tampa, Florida to deal with those responsible for the massacre of his family, he ends up with neighbors consisting of a weird pierced guy, a beauty queen and a dumb fat guy.
If you take a closer look, The Punisher is full of such characters (Memphis bounty-hunter, Russian wrestler) and, besides Tom Castle’s transformation into a killing machine, none of the characters undergo much development. Although this is a film without much intellectual pretence, the required depth is totally lacking. Even the action is pretty straight-forward and standard. I enjoyed watching it, but The Punisher is totally forgettable.
In short: amusing. Nothing more, nothing less.
Directed by: Jonathan Hensleigh
Starring: Tom Castle, John Travolta, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos
Runtime: 124′
The Punisher is available on VHS and DVD
Official Website
Arjan Welles (213 posts)Arjan Welles - law graduate. I work at a bank, I work as a film critic for Dutch and English media. My favorite directors are David Lynch, David Fincher, Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino. I love arthouse over blockbusters.
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Saw this a while ago. It sucked.
I enjoyed the first one – with Dolph Lundgren and Jeroen Krabbé – even more (which says it all)
Comment by Paco — Sun January 16, 2005 @ 0:56I have to disagree. As a revenge movie this one does the job. It gets you really angry with Castle’s foes and then gets you satisfaction as they’re killed one by one.
Comment by weefselkweekje — Wed May 4, 2005 @ 13:49While far from perfect, I also have to disagree, even though I liked the Goldblatt-Lundgren 89 version as well.
While I do feel Travolta was a bit over the top, and I had two problems storywise with The Russian (if you didn’t read the comics, it takes you a minute to know who he is, and, why didn’t he wait for Saint’s henchmen?). The main problem with the film is that it is Quentin Glass, played by the talented actor Will Patton, is built up in the story as having more confrontation with Castle and friends. When Glass kills him off, the film for me disinigrates from there. Glass should have been in the pic and should at least be killed off before Saint.
I wanted more of Harry Heck too- a wonderful introduction followed by a all too quick exit.
But I liked Tom Jane (the actor credit on this page lists the last name of his character) and I loved director Hensleigh’s nods to Peckinpah, Leone and even George Miller’s Mad Max films.
Comment by Darren J Seeley — Sat September 3, 2005 @ 3:36the first punisher movie is the best movie of all time and i just cant wait to see the next one i have almost finished the video game and i have seen the whole movie 100000 times it that good and if some one ask me what my favorite movie was it would have to be the punisher
Comment by nathan — Wed November 30, 2005 @ 6:25