Review of Punisher: War Zone (2008) by Gimly M — 25 Nov 2013

Honestly, most people I've talked to about this film, and almost all of the reviews I've read, have ground this film into the dirt, but know what? I love it, so there. It's the only Marvel film to date to ever have been directed by a woman (Lexi Alexander, who created and co-wrote Green Street Hooligans), the Punisher film closest to its source material, colour coordination/representation on par with films like Revolver, and the star is not only one of my favourite actors of all time, but he went through months of military training, body-building and theoretical practice before playing Frank Castle in a film where the trigger-happy hero actually reloads!

I'll get the things I didn't like done first. Julie Benz (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Rambo, Saw V, Boondock Saints II: All Saint's Day, Dexter) I usually quite enjoy, and here she even ditched the blonde hair in favour of the much more attractive black, but she was not really a great addition to the cast. Mostly a writing fault I'm sure, but it just seemed to be a bad character for her, very similar to her role as Sarah Miller in the most recent Rambo flick. There was also some cheese in the film, it's not terribly overburened with it, and it's not something I usually mind, but when you go out of your way to make a film dark, you can't risk lines like "Billy is dead, from now on you call me Jigsaw" or "I axed you a Question. If you don't answer me, I guess I'll just have to axe you again". Other than that I can understand why certain people still wouldn't enjoy the film, but hey, fuck those people.

Back on to the positive; Dominic West (Hannibal Rising, 300, Centurion, Chicago, The Wire) makes a more convincing gangster than John Travolta ever did, and just like Ray Stevenson (King Arthur, Outpost, The Book of Eli, Rome, Thor) he portrayed a larger than life character, in a physically feasible manner; Jigsaw (above). Yes, the bad guy is named Jigsaw and he wants to play a game. Seriously. So maybe that's not much of a positive but this film does play out in a much more of a Horror-type-genre way than a regular old Action film. But he's not a John John Cramer character at all, he's a hitman and gangboss working with one of the last crime-families in town, famous for his vanity, until his entire body is ripped up in a glass crusher by The Punisher, and he has to be repaired, mostly with horse-hide. Which is kind of a bad ass revenge scenario for the antagonist to have.

More than anything though, at the end of the day I'm a Stevenson fanboy. He's a vastly talented and very attractive man who delivers in each and every single role he's portrayed, always coming out as memorable. So if you don't have a fucking clue who the guy is, you mightn't love the whole thing as much as I do, although you should certainly appreciate all the effort they've gone to for military authenticity. I mean, The Punisher's arms dealer is a supporting charter for Christ's sake. He needs to go back home to restock on weapons, if that doesn't scream realism I don't know what does.

78%.

-Gimly.