Overall Rating
  Awesome: 16.67%
Worth A Look: 12.88%
Average: 9.09%
Pretty Bad: 21.21%
Total Crap: 40.15%
6 reviews, 96 user ratings
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| Punisher, The (2004) |
by Scott Weinberg
"The Mafia slaughtered my family and all I got was this stupid T-shirt."
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'Schizophrenic' is a word you'll see movie critics use from time to time, and never has it been more appropriate than when describing "The Punisher" - the latest Marvel adaptation to surface at the multiplex, and easily the silliest thus far. What begins as an obvious and ill-conceived piece of "gritty" revenge thriller gradually becomes a full-blown unintentional farce of epic proportions. Rare is the movie that makes such a speedy trip between Maudlin-ville and Hilarious-town.As The Punisher opens and we're introduced to Frank Castle, we know his family is going to be killed right quick. In an effort to expedite this process, the prologue sees the inadvertent murder of a crime boss' eldest son, the dispatch an unfortunate side effect of Castle's latest drug bust. When the swankily evil Howard Saint learns of his son's demise, he (under orders from his evil and grieving wife) condemns Castle's family to death.
And by 'family' I mean family. Back in the day, Paul Kersey went on a Death Wish rampage of vengeance due to one rape and one murder. Precisely thirty years later, our society is at a point where it take the wholesale slaughter of an entire extended family to get our blood boiling enough to earn some nasty cinematic vengeance. While enjoying a big, sunny family reunion in Puerto Rico, Castle's wife and son, his mom and dad, his cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and even a few unfortunate waiters - are killed in less than four minutes.
Castle somehow avoids death (despite being shot in the chest) and re-emerges...as...The Punisher.
Although "punisher" is perhaps overstating Castle's new role. He doesn't so much as punish his tormenters as he does incite marital strife and inter-relationship stresses. More of a gloomy big-screen adaptation of that goofy old Equalizer series than any sort of rah-rah Revenge Flick, The Punisher is equal parts boring, dull and painfully familiar.
The only thing that rescues screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh's directorial debut from being completely worthless is something he probably never intended: The Punisher is a hilarious movie. Like Mommie Dearest hilarious.
The big problem, among several, is that of a curiously (and blatantly uncomfortable) incongruous balance between grim drama and unwitting farce. Had The Punisher not opened with a scene depicting the brutal murder of old men and small children, one could perhaps take the remaining movie as a silly little action yarn, but when things start turning silly, it's the reminder of the earlier slaughter that casts a grimy taste in one's throat.
Aside from the maniacally overwrought dialogue, we're offered a laundry list of actors in full-on Over-Emote Mode. Thomas Jane (as the titular punishment-dispenser) does as well as can be expected; he seems to think he's in a straight-faced action movie and delivers the best work possible under such arcane circumstances. Everyone else (including the one-note Laura Harring and poor Will Patton, saddled with a role that nobody could salvage) plays the flick as broad as the side of a barn.
Even the most basic requirement of an action film (that'd be the action) is muddled and murky. To say the thrills in The Punisher are few and far between would be a polite way of putting it. Barring one extended brawl between Castle and a goofy looking hulk, the action sequences consist of either A) people with machine guns or B) John Travolta chewing scenery. And come on, how convincing could an action scene with John Travolta be these days?Presumptuously (and unforgivably) unspooling for over 120 minutes, 'The Punisher' offers very little in the departments of Action, Acting or Cohesive Plot. It does, however, deliver derisive snorts by the boatload while presenting a clear downside to the popularity afforded guys like Spider-Man and the X-Men. This was one of the final big-budget movies bankrolled by Artisan before they were bought up by Lions Gate; if this was Artisan's idea of a 'tentpole' blockbuster, they're probably better off where they are now: gone.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=9242&reviewer=128
originally posted: 04/16/04 14:02:26
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USA
16-Apr-2004 (R)
DVD: 21-Nov-2006
UK
N/A
Australia
03-Jun-2004
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