The Punisher



The Punisher is the latest movie adapted from a Marvel comic book, and it doesn't ruin Marvel's unbroken streak of fairly good movies. The Punisher (his real name is Frank Castle) is not one of Marvel's first tier heroes, basically being a guy who puts on a black shirt with a white skull on it and shoots criminals. While the comic book version of the story has Frank Castle's family getting killed because they accidently happened upon a mob killing, the movie makes their death a revenge killing, along with all of Frank Castle's extended family, because Castle (played by Thomas Jane), an FBI agent, arranged a sting that accidently killed mobbed up investment banker Howard Saint's son. Castle survives the massacre and moves into a rat trap apartment in the shadow of Saint's skyscraper headquarters and begins a bloody war of vengeance against Saint ands his family.


Fashion tips from the Matrix.

There was quite a bit I liked about The Punisher. For one thing, it was shot and set here in Tampa Bay, which gave the movie a sun-baked griminess you don't usually see in Hollywood movies. Sure, it was a little silly that it was suggested that there is so much prostitution on the Gulf Coast that Saint is moving dozens of millions of dollars seemingly every week, but the character of Tampa comes through. Most of the action scenes are pretty good, especially two attempts on Castle's life by colorful assassins. The first is Harry Heck, a country singer from Memphis whose love of homespun sayings is his undoing, and the other is the Russian, a nearly unstoppable man mountain from Garh Ennis' memorable first run on the comic book. And Thomas Jane is good choice for the brooding Punisher. He handles the character moments well.


A lime green GTO? The Punisher would have to wear black socks and sandals to be any more Florida.

Which brings us to what I didn't like. That would be John Travolta as Howard Saint. Travolta does some his worst acting here, and it doesn't help that it isn't clear why Saint should be any kind of challenge to the Punisher. There's kind of a Othello subplot for his character, but Travolta doesn't even seem to be trying. I enjoyed the movie regardless of of Travolta, but I can't say how much of that was just because it was set in Tampa.

Posted: Sun - April 18, 2004 at      

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