Review of Punisher: War Zone (2008) by Graham B — 24 Jul 2011

As the best Punisher film we're ever likely to see, WAR ZONE is a severely bipolar movie. At its dark heart, it wants to be taken seriously and very nearly achieves that goal, but its fatal flaw is two-fold: it's too stupid to be intelligent and too intelligent to be stupid. If that sounds contradictory, I know. It is also one of the most gratuitously disgusting films I've ever seen, but I'm a fan of the Punisher, and I suppose they call it "WAR ZONE" for a reason...

After three attempts to cinematize the Punisher, we already know his story: Frank Castle saw his family get killed by criminals, which put him on a sociopathic quest for revenge. His M.O. is simple: if you're a criminal, you're dead. WAR ZONE therefore starts out gritty and solemn, giving us a Punisher who brutally slaughters anyone on the wrong side of the law. He holds no code of conduct in his killings, even beheading a crime boss' wife in a massacre early on. It seems, at least at first, that Marvel is willing to go boldly where most comics fans don't expect, but the central conflict of the film arises when Castle unknowingly kills an undercover cop posing as one of the mafia. This prompts guilt as he tries to make restitution to the officer's widow and daughter, and he begins to doubt whether he's doing the world a favor by killing criminals if innocent folks are taking casualties, too.

The performances are wildly uneven. Ray Stevenson is EXCELLENT as Punisher, and it's a wonder he wasn't cast two incarnations ago. Rarely has a comic character looked so IDENTICAL to the page on film, and he gets the right amount of pathos and sociopathy. However, as Jigsaw the film's villain, Dominic West isn't sincere at all; not only does he speak in a laughable Brooklyn accent, but also his mannerisms are overstressed, juvenile, and herky-jerky to the point of Tom & Jerry. When Punisher throws him into a glass crusher, he loses every scrap of skin on his face (a scene I couldn't watch), so surgeons graft on whatever patchwork flesh they can, literally making him a facial "Jigsaw." You would think such a character arc would elicit some seriousness, but apparently not. As for the other cast, they seem to realize this is all over the place and just follow action movie stereotypes: the sad and angry widow, the sensitive child who reignites Punisher's soft side, the dead cop's ex-partner who hunts Punisher and then teams up with him, the techie who supplies Punisher with weaponry, and a goofball cop who feeds info to Punisher on the side. There's not really any conviction here, which is to say that the only things on the filmmakers' minds appear to be 1.)"Let's get Punisher to where he can graphically kill lots of people!", or 2.) "Let's just blow some sh-t up!".

And blow it up they do, but in the most garish, neon-colored (?!) ways since Joel Schumacher turned Gotham City into a leather bar. (I'm still scratching my head at the Jamaican Parkour Gang. Who knew bazookas had such awesome aim?) At a certain point, you realize there's an awful lot of darkness in this violent, sadistic film, but it's been manifested in the gaudiest, most immature way imaginable. In fact, "immature" is exactly how I'd describe this entire film, and I wonder what a horror director like Sam Raimi could have done with the franchise, since his DARKMAN remains an excellently kitschy but dramatically respectable tale of psychotic revenge. The only thing that seems to be serious-minded (aside from Ray Stevenson's acting) is the great score by Michael Wandmacher, who finally gives the Punisher a strong musical identity. Oh, well. After three failed films, I think it's time to put Frank Castle out to cinematic pasture. I don't think he'd mind, at least not until they start giving Namor preferential treatment at the box office...