The Punisher

Frank Castle (Tom Jane) is an undercover FBI agent who gives his final, stunning, performance – stinging a young arms dealer, son of the feared ‘lord of the underground’ Howard Saint (John Travolta). After Castle’s retirement, he joins his extended family on the coast of Puerto Rico for a nice retirement vacation before he finally moves and settles down in Europe with his family.

My family's dead and all I get is a lousy t-shirt?

Saint is not impressed that is beloved son is now dead, and orders his team to travel to Puero Rico and eliminate Castle, along with his entire family. The men in black arrive, shoot the place up, leave no survivors; Mysteriously our hero Frank Castle survives 43 shots to the chest and subsequently washing up on a beach and is soon under the care of a local islander.

Five months later, the punishing begins.

"Frank Castle is dead. Call me The Punisher."

Normally, a plot like this would sound semi-appealing for action fanatics and fans of the ‘revenge’ style movie. However The Punisher delivers significantly more punishment than a B-grade story. The acting was terrible. The editing appeared extremely sloppy. The script seemed as if it was written by a high school drop-out! There’s really only one word to sum up this entire film – cheese!

It seems The Punisher has fallen down alongside the countless other terrible comic-book to film adaptations. Spider-man 2 seems like the only film of late to be entertaining, mildly intelligent and have its origins lie in a comic-book character. Screenwriters don’t seem to understand that you can get away with cheese in a comic-book, but it simply doesn’t work in a feature film, especially a feature film aimed at the adult market.

Watching this film has forced this reviewer to assess exactly what makes a good action movie. You don’t really need an engaging story. You don’t really need any story at all! But one thing you do need is strong characters. Characters the audience can either warm to, or despise. Predator had your “don’t take shit from no one� character Dutch. Die Hard had your “average Joe with a passion for smashin’� character in John McClane. Mad Max had your “my families dead. I’m MAD!� character Max Rockatansky. Three brilliant action films, with three finely-crafted characters and three strong actors at the helm.

The character of Frank Castle was not likable. I found myself being frustrated by his inability to be entertaining. Tom Jane’s performance was very average at best. Action films need to have a strong, likable hero who the audience will root for. The Punisher simply did not deliver!

Note: After another painful viewing, I’ve lowered the rating for this film from 4, to 2. My overly generous ways of the past are over! Embrace the 'hard-ass' reviewer of tomorrow!

I was extremely impressed with this transfer particularly the fantastic black levels. The natural black of the night, the shadows and the dark silhouetted characters are presented in beautiful detail, and will appear as dark as the natural black of your monitor.

Travolta has certainly come a loong way since Grease!

Colours were rich and vivid. The beginning of the film is set on a beautiful and pristine tropical island. The colours of the sand and foliage are captured perfectly. As the film progresses, it gets darker and darker (to somehow reflect the nature of the character) but manages to maintain a strong, detailed and rich looking picture.

It was a dire shame such a great video transfer was wasted on such cheese. Fans of the film will be jumping for joy, as this is a borderline reference quality image. I found very little to fault.

The Punisher’s soundtrack is delivered in Dolby Digital 5.1 EX in both English, Czech and Hungarian.

I’ve already well and truly made it known how awful the film is, so I’ll leave it alone while assessing the audio! On a whole, this was a very, very good audio track. The action sequences sounded simply superb with excellent spatial clarity and some fantastic sub effects. Most bullet ricochets and gunshots were delivered through the rear speakers, and always sounded excellent. The definition within the surround channels are something to marvel at (pun intended). The last 20 minutes of this film would act as the perfect demo scene for those who aren’t familiar with DVD or surround sound.

The dialogue was usually easy to hear, however I forced myself to turn up the volume a few times to hear some of the mumbling of Tom Jane above the natural ambience of the scene. A minor issue, but perhaps the only weak point of the soundtrack.

Overall, a very pleasing soundtrack. Definitely reference quality (in specific action scenes). I’ll be using this disc to demonstrate a) the crap Hollywood produces, and b) how much a fantastic Dolby EX track can boost your action movie!

Director’s (Jonathan Hensleigh) Audio Commentary
This is Hensleigh’s directional debut, so naturally he’s quite excited about adding comments to his film. He talks about his influences, and how he attempted to adapt the comic-book character of Frank Castle faithfully. Fans of the film will be interested in listening, but it’s not overly interesting.

Keeping it Real: Punisher Stunts (27:45)
Lengthy featurette detailing the many number of stunts carried out during the film. The Stunt Coordinator Gary Hymes takes us through the process of organizing, setting up and finally executing a stunt, giving examples. Director, Jonathan Hensleigh, makes it known that there were no computer-generated images or digital enhancements done to the stunts in The Punisher. This featurette is 16:9 enhanced and contains optional English subtitles.

He's Punishing... bow-and-arrow style!

War Journal: On the Set of “The Punisher� (29:59)
Progressive ‘making of’ documentary providing insight into the production of the film. This featurette is mainly orientated around the budget, as the entire film was produced for under $30 million. We also get to see how the character of The Punisher was created, based around the original comic-books. This featurette is also 16:9 enhanced and contains optional English subtitles.

There’s also a music video: “Step Up� by Drowning Pool and 2 Deleted Scenes with optional commentary from Jonathan Hensleigh (Director) on offer.

As an action film, The Punisher failed miserably. As an engrossing thriller, The Punisher again failed miserably. Its only saving grace was about 10 minutes of well filmed and executed stunts. I’m surprised an actor with such a good reputation, John Travolta, put his name to this film.

This amazingly mastered DVD deserves a better quality film! For those who can endure the cheesy characters and hysterical one-liner’s will now have this as a reference quality DVD in their library.

If you’re a revenge thriller junkie, simply grab Mad Max and watch it repetitively. Steer clear of The Punisher at all costs!