The Punisher [2004]

In this new version, The Punisher legend is removed from its gritty origins and relocated in Tampa Bay, Florida; first big mistake, as even in the darker scenes it conjures up an atmosphere that's about as menacing as a travel documentary. Second mistake is the plot, which is filled with loopholes you could fly a 747 through. After an incredibly infantile opening scene where Frank Castle, aka The Punisher (Thomas Jane), dons a blonde wig and cheapo suit to fool a couple of idiotic arms buyers, we get the meat of the story; the deal turns sour and one of the buyers gets shot, and turns out to be the son of a local drugs baron, Howard Saint (John Travolta). In the chaos it was a lowly SWAT officer that shot his son, but for some reason, Saint swears vengeance on Castle and so it begins.

Saint assembles a team of thugs who go and wipe out the entire Castle family in a badly edited massacre scene. They then try and kill Castle by shooting him in the chest and setting fire to a pile of petrol drums about ten feet away from him... er, yeah. He doesn't die of course, and instead comes back as the Punisher, moving into a dingy apartment and vying to bring down Saint. So much for the set up, which at this stage sounds fairly feasible. What you get from the remaining ninety minutes of the movie is like an episode of Dawson's Creek, albeit set in a scummy tenement building, where Castle gets to know the incredibly badly visualised characters of his weird neighbours, in between bumping off a couple of Saint's hired thugs in unspectacular fashion.

I won't go on explaining the plot, as I'm starting to bore myself recollecting it. What I will say is this; for an action film, The Punisher is surprisingly lacking in action, and what action there is, quite frankly sucks. It all seems misplaced and smacks of desperation, particularly the pointless car chase with the guitar-wielding hitman, as we have a huge build up with The Punisher constructing his armoured death-machine car for scratch, and then BAM, he's hit a Ford Mondeo and written it off. Similarly the final shootout is incredibly anti-climactic, with the Punisher getting shot almost as many times as the people he kills in one of the most potential wasting action scenes I think I've ever seen.

The acting is similarly dire. Although Thomas Jane does an admirable job with what scant source material he is given, John Travolta puts in a terrible turn as Howard Saint, completely lacking in any charisma or menace, in fact because of his wimpy performance I felt more sorry for him at the loss of his son than I did for Frank Castle at the loss of his whole family. All Travolta had to do was reprise his role as Agent Shear from Swordfish and he would have had it sorted. Will Patton is completely miscast as Saint's lead henchman, Rebecca Romjin Stamos just looks bored as the love interest and I won't even get started on the other freaky neighbours who embarrass every scene they are in.

Overall this is a truly terrible film, underlined with an atrocious spaghetti-western soundtrack topping off the awfulness. I am not surprised how many bad reviews this film has received, but I am amazed at how many people liked it, calling it a great action movie. To those people, go watch Hard Boiled or Black Hawk Down, or if you want a better, more recent revenge movie Man on Fire; more slow burning, but much better, which isn't saying much.


Buy this or I'll punish you!   October 25, 2004
Kemp (Northampton, Northamptonshire, England)
15 out of 22 found this review helpful

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! I'll punish anyone who says this is rubbish. Jonathan Hensleigh did a great job of resurrecting the Marvel vigilante to the big screen with top-notch action, bloody violence and great acting to back this masterpiece up using the talents of Thomas Jane, John Travolta and Rebecca Romjin-Stamos.

I read reviews from America and England and there was a lot of mixed reviews so I went and saw this myself and thank God I didn't listen to the people who thought this film was rubbish.

Thomas Jane seemed to get out of his wooden state and do a good performance as Frank Castle, a retiring FBI agent who on his last mission kills the son of a Miami mob boss, Howard Saint, played by John Travolta. You could tell John Travolta was having fun being the bad guy and didn't do a bad performance. Thus giving Frank Castle the life of hell as all his family, literally his entire family, are murdered during a family reunion. Here comes our Marvel hero.

Be warned this film is not for the faint hearted or non-action junkies so be prepared!

With a straightforward plot, great acting all around, superb action and lots of bloody violence. The Punisher is one of the best Marvel and action movies of the year... see for yourself.


Better than Lundgren's effort   January 28, 2005
N. Williams (Hull)
14 out of 18 found this review helpful

Ladies and gentlemen, the movie that nearly sank the comic book movie genre about, ooh, must be 15 years ago now, has returned. Well almost. This time round the good people of hollywood have seen fit to at least try and bring an element of the comic to the movie.
To set the scene, Frank Castle (a suitably broody Tom Jane), ex-undercover agent, marine and general hard man hits a downpoint in his life when his family are massacered in a revenge hit by Howard Saint (John Travolta to all intents and purposes reprising his role from Swordfish). Understandably angry at this turn of events, Castle decides to fight fire with fire and sets about destroying Saint's family and criminal organisation. And that's pretty much it. Whilst there are some nice ideas in the film such as Castle attempting to make it look like Saint's wife is having an affair, most of the film relies on its action, and unfortunately, its kind of disappointing. As a hero, the Punisher has more in common with say, Batman, than any of his Marvel cohorts. He has no 'powers' as such, just a vast array of weaponary and the necessary skills to put them to deadly effect. This means that a lot of the action revolves around shootouts or good old fashioned dust-ups and director Jonathon Hensleigh seems to have wanted to instill at least a semblence of realism. For example, in the climactic shootout, the Punisher actually gets shot, albeit mostly in his bulletproof vest (I defy anyone not to scream at the screen as a thug approaches Castle pumping round after round into his vest. Can he not hit the head from 3 feet away?). Also in a strangely bold move for a film of this kind, when someone gets shot they don't just grimace and then launch into some bullet-time nonsense, they just die, or at the very least find themselves a little out of the running. This is bold and actually makes the fights a little anticlimactic. Don't get me wrong, i'm not against realism but there's realistic and then there's just, well, dull. The theres the supproting cast. Why was Rebecca Rmojin-Stamos in this film? What purpose did her character serve other than break up Castle's various face-offs with Saint's random assassins (who just seem to turn up in a single scene for a fght).
Having said that, for all it's faults, Punisher really is rather good fun and does have some moments of inspiration. The torture scene in particular where Castle 'tortures' a goon with a blowtorch, an ice lolly and a viscously dark sense of humour had me in stitches (Note: this is not some piece of ultraviolence, it really is very funny!). The action is packed with testosterone and I found it refreshing to see a film that at least tried to bring a sense of realism to the superhero franchise.
At the end of the day this is a film that you can watch and enjoy and then forget almost instantly. Much darker and more 'adult' than most Marvel productions (i.e. people do actually get tortured, shot, blown up etc.) this is also going to have limited appeal. Not as clever as other shoot-em-up actioners, The Punisher is as shallow as a burst kiddies paddling pool on a scorching summer's day. As i say in my title, this is much better than Dolph Lundgren's attempt (mainly thanks to Tom Jane having at least some acting ability), and whilst that may not be saying much, this is certainly an entertaining hour and a half of testosterone fuelled nonsense. Rent before you part with the additional coins required for a purchase.


The punisher- an excellent film, but parts are lost!   February 25, 2005
13 out of 15 found this review helpful

One of marvels darkest characters if portrayed brilliantly in this gritty-action movie.

A lot has been changed from the original punisher storys. His family, the way they are killed etc is very different. Also, i feel fans will argue that the film ignores a lot of the punishers psychotic nature and makes him seem a lot nicer person than he was portrayed in the comics.

However, what they have done with the character i feel is excellent. The film looks and feels great, but it is not perfect. The russian is good but not as good as he was in the comic. Heck is also good but the time he is in it is waaaaaay too short. John t is excellent in the film and plays howard saint very well.

It seems like they have crammed a lot into one film, so a lot of the elements are lost, personally, i think they should have split it all up a bit, as the time with heck and the russian are much too short lived.

The punisher is deffinatelly one of the best and darkest of the marvel characters, and whether you are a fan or not, i suggest you give this a try.


Buy this or I'll punish you!   October 30, 2004
Kemp (Northampton, Northamptonshire, England)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! I'll punish anyone who says this is rubbish. Jonathan Hensleigh did a great job of resurrecting the Marvel vigilante to the big screen with top-notch action, bloody violence and great acting to back this masterpiece up using the talents of Thomas Jane, John Travolta and Rebecca Romjin-Stamos.

I read reviews from America and England and there was a lot of mixed reviews so I went and saw this myself and thank God I didn't listen to the people who thought this film was rubbish.

Thomas Jane seemed to get out of his wooden state and do a good performance as Frank Castle, a retiring FBI agent who on his last mission kills the son of a Miami mob boss, Howard Saint, played by John Travolta. You could tell John Travolta was having fun being the bad guy and didn't do a bad performance. Thus giving Frank Castle the life of hell as all his family, literally his entire family, are murdered during a family reunion. Here comes our Marvel hero.

Be warned this film is not for the faint hearted or non-action junkies so be prepared!

With a straightforward plot, great acting all around, superb action and lots of bloody violence. The Punisher is one of the best Marvel and action movies of the year... see for yourself.