‘Punisher: War Zone’: A poor man’s adaptation of comic book
“P unisher: War Zone” is the latest Marvel comic book to endure another stab at movie adaptation. Its cinema lineage is long. It’s a sequel to 2004’s “The Punisher,” which was preceded by a 1989 film of the same name.
It’s the story of Frank Castle, aka the Punisher (Ray Stevenson), an ex-Special Forces instructor exacting revenge on all Mafia types like the ones that killed his family after they witnessed a mob execution.
PUNISHER: WAR ZONE
Two stars
STARRING: Ray Stevenson, Julie Benz and Dominic West
DIRECTOR: Lexi Alexander
RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes
RATING: R for pervasive strong brutal violence, language and some drug use.
THE LOWDOWN: Vigilante Frank Castle squares off against a vengeful mob boss he disfigured.
The most recent “Punisher” didn’t get the kind of script treatment or budget that a more lucrative Marvel franchise such as “X-Men” or “Spider Man” would, and it shows. It’s not for lack of trying from director Lexi Alexander, who hit pay dirt with her last effort, 2005’s “Green Street Hooligans.”
So this “Punisher” becomes less of a high-flying superhero flick and more of a cartoony surface-scratching psychological thriller about a tortured-soul antihero. It’s a poor man’s “Batman,” so to speak.
Indeed, it’s one of the few Marvel movies brutally violent enough to get an R rating. And for good reason. Shotgun shells render many of the Punisher’s foes headless. Internal organs are eaten. It goes without saying that it’s not for the squeamish.
At the movie’s opening, the Punisher infiltrates a recycling business (really a front for the mob), and two notable things happen: Boss Billy Russoti (Dominic West) is horribly disfigured by the Punisher in a glass crusher, and the Punisher accidentally kills an undercover FBI agent. “One of the good guys,” he laments.
Russoti’s face is left with the consistency and appearance of a weathered stitched-leather baseball — an altogether unconvincing makeup job. It wouldn’t be a comic book, err, movie, without a hideous villain. Perhaps the painful disfigurement adds another character dimension to the stereotypical mob boss with an exaggerated Brooklyn accent and penchant for settling disputes with a firearm.
Upon his transformation from human to monster, Russoti matter-of-factly announces his nom de guerre, “Jigsaw,” but it sounds pre-planned and came without deliberation. I gave more thought to naming my dog. Presumably there’s no relation to the “Saw” movie killer of the same name, but the equally obscene amount of violence in both movies would suggest otherwise.
Jigsaw assembles his new Cabinet of goons by freeing his brother Loony Bin Jim (Doug Hutchison, in the movie’s most entertaining performance) from an asylum and later recruiting an assortment of ethnic gangs for a final showdown with the Punisher.
Meanwhile, the Punisher is racked by guilt over the friendly-fire killing and considers hanging ’em up. Caught in between all this are the dead agent’s wife and daughter now targeted by Jigsaw.
There’s also something in there about Russian gangsters, a dirty bomb and an impending terrorist attack on New York City — as if we needed another reminder about modern-day security threats. But this is all secondary to the wife-daughter plot, which leaves the movie operating on too many levels.
“Punisher: War Zone” is a low-budget movie that so irritatingly wanted to be anything but. It doesn’t hold up to the standards set by its Marvel brethren, and even fans of the original comic book might be turned off by the gruesome splatter.
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