There is a fine line between art and entertainment, which the likes of Marvel, DC and Dark Horse have been walking for generations now. I don't know enough about superheroes to tell you which side exactly they're on, but I'll tell you this. Once the superhero craze hit Hollywood, it became about selling them to as many people as possible, rather than about the characters themselves. THE PUNISHER has been somewhat of a guinea pig in that regard. Not only it came soon after the original SPIDER-MAN, it's original iteration came way before and starred the ever-awesome Dolph Lundgren as Frank Castle. Relaunching the franchise seemed like a no-brainer at the time, since its stark and visceral nature would maximize the cost-to-benefit ratio. Over the years, THE PUNISHER revealed itself as one of the most difficult franchise to adapt to cinema, though as Dolph Lundgren, Thomas Jane and even Ray Stevenson failed to embody Frank Castle in a satisfying manner. The 2004 film, starring Jane, fails a little harder than the others.
Frank Castle (Jane) once was a successful FBI undercover agent, who decided to retire to enjoy life with his wife Maria (Samatha Mathis) and his son Will (Marcus Johns). Unfortunately, there was a rather important loose end in his last case. The son of cracked out businessman/mobster Howard Saint (John Travolta) has been killed in the ongoing chaos of the arrests. Saint vows revenge on whoever is responsible and ends up slaughtering Castle's entire family (direct and extended) as well as leaving him for dead during a family reunion in Puerto Rico, on his wife's special request. Castle manages to survive the brutal ordeal and vows to take vengeance. He travels back to the city with a huge chip on his shoulder and attempts to avenge the death of his family while trying to manage the crippling weight of grief and guilt.
All right, I have no major complaint about the first hour of this film, except maybe that it goes through the motions of Frank Castle's background with not much energy. I'm familiar with it and at least it more or less respects the original material. The acting of Thomas Jane stick out like a sore thumb, though. You know, The Punisher is that guy. He's a man who fell off the deep end and thinks extreme violence solve everything. Jane's stoïc, minimalist work doesn't cut it. I would've preferred another actor solely based on the physical appearance, but if anything, Timothy Olyphant proved it was possible to be a pretty boy and act dark and tormented while being Raylan Givens, a character who's morals aren't THAT far from Frank Castle's. A more energetic despair (or maybe just more focus on Castle's despair) would have been appreciated.
Yep, that scene is from this movie.
THE PUNISHER goes from mediocre to terrible in the second hour and this time, Thomas Jane has little to do with it. See, after going through the hoops and explaining to the audience who Frank Castle is, one would expect to get what he paid for. Seeing The Punisher actually punish some people. Unfortunately, director Jonathan Hensleigh thought it would be great that Frank Castle would only spend nineteen minutes of this movie actually BEING The Punisher. A whole lot of time is invested in building emotional background with useless characters (Ben Foster is terrible in this movie. TERRIBLE). I don't care if those characters were in the first issues, they don't have their place here. The director's refusal to make stylistic choices to make a cohesive (and coherent) movie is actually handicapping his portrayal of the source material.
I have to say, I liked John Tavolta's work here. He brings his own spin to Howard Saint and stands out for actually trying to act. His character is the victim of questionable plotting again and becomes ridiculously overexposed. I have when movies do that. Spending so much time torturing their bad guy, he comes off as a helpless idiot. GANGSTER SQUAD was also guilty of that. Once again, I wanted to see Frank Castle shoot people, not see Howard Saint's life being pissed away. It's something Thomas Jane seems to have understood himself since he released a thoroughly satisfying Punisher short last year.Gotta give this to Jane. He loves and understands the character.
I'm not sure what the intent behind Jonathan Hensleigh's THE PUNISHER was. It sure did a poor job at selling the character. I doubt the goal was to be a hardcore, legit superhero film, although the comic book fans don't have much of a quarrel with the actual timeline. THE PUNISHER came off as a movie that's been tampered with by the long hands of Hollywood execs. When the final product is such a jumbled mess, it often means that a suit-clad idiot that knows nothing about writing or making movies has changed something about it. THE PUNISHER has needless, useless emotional build-up and is unexplainably thin on Punisher moments. Superheroes are better enjoyed while they are in action, not when they star in their own moral drama, which this movie unfortunately doesn't understand. It's soon to be ten years and don't expect it to make history.
TWO STARS
TWO STARS
