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Written by XXX; directed by Jonathon Hensleigh; starring Tom Jane and Rebecca Romijn. Released to DVD on September 7, 2005. Director Jonathon Hensleigh’s feature film debut, The Punisher, is an interesting mixture of extreme formula and unsettlingly off-the-wall entertainment. It’s an unusual combination to be sure and a rather generic intro to a movie review, but as succinct and prescient an opening as I could concoct. Thomas Jane (who is now going by Tom Jane) stars in The Punisher as undercover FBI agent, Frank Castle. When Castle’s entire extended family is ordered killed by the egomaniacal underworld figure, Howard Saint (John Travolta), Castle spends several months dealing with bouts of severe depression before he finds his own personal antidote: bloody revenge. Taking on Saint’s entire criminal organization, Castle leaves no stone unturned and actually derives a certain sense of sadistic enjoyment from the psychological pain he is able to cause Saint. Helping Castle in his one-man crusade against Saint are three fellow outcasts, Dave (Ben Foster), Mr. Bumpo (John Pinette) and Joan (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos). The plot structure of The Punisher is extremely simple: one man is looking for revenge. You can probably think of five movies with this same exact plot before you finish reading this sentence–one, Kill Bill vol. 2, even opened on the same weekend as The Punisher. However, the tone of The Punisher is different from any of the other of the aforementioned movies that you’re thinking of. It is a dark, vicious movie; look no farther than the churlish glee Castle receives from his ability to emotionally torture Saint. Lives are taken in an instant and no one is spared. Certain people are killed simply because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time; the waiters at Saint’s evening club, for example. However the film’s gruesome, disturbing and calloused nature is one of its greatest selling points. Formulaic as these characters might normally be in a summer action blockbuster–Castle is an alcoholic, Saint is a borderline psychotic crime lord and Joan is a girl who makes bad choices with men–Hensleigh’s gritty lens gives them a much sharper focus than they would normally receive. Sadly, The Punisher’s macabre tone does nothing to help the almost amateur style of editing and pacing that surrounds the project. For an action movie whose plot is explained in its entirety during the voiceover of its trailer ("They killed his family… now he’s out for revenge."), I found it highly unusual that Saint’s henchmen were still chasing down assorted members of the Castle clan a half an hour into the movie. The chase itself is a shockingly poor thought our chase sequence. Employing a number of techniques from ‘80’s TV series’ and low-budget horror flicks–the most egregious example of came when Castle’s wife decided to ‘make a run for it’ when she thought the bad guys weren’t looking–I found myself nearly yelling advice at the characters on screen. "Don’t make a break for it! Stay put! My God, haven’t you learned anything from Steven Seagal’s movies?" But, unfortunately for Mrs. Castle, she hadn’t. She runs towards their Jeep (apparently reasoning that the bad guys wouldn’t hear her turn it on and drive away) and is, of course, caught soon there after and dispatched in a grisly manner. If you’ve seen an action film before, chances are that you will be ahead of the broader strokes of The Punisher’s plot from the opening credits onward; not to brag, but I guessed the film’s closing line around minute ten. However, you will not be ahead of the film’s minutia, and therein lies most of The Punisher’s entertainment value. The Punisher does contain some particularly leaden dialogue–Castle and Saint’s lines all seem to be growled–and the film has a ridiculously formulaic plot structure, but the smaller elements of this project caught me pleasantly by surprise. Jane brings an element of professionalism and charisma to Castle, a role that contrary to my initial impression, actually provided none of it’s own, and Travolta’s ham-handed acting abilities are for once put to semi-good use. Hensleigh certainly made some mistakes on his rookie effort, but instilled enough heart, energy and uniqueness to make The Punisher one of those rare entertaining failures. If he can ever get his hands on a decent script, Hensleigh is going to be a major force. | |||||
