Review of Punisher: War Zone (2008) by Blue B — 05 Apr 2010

Ages ago there was a Dolph Lundgren film called The Punisher.

This was back in the 80s or something when they used to make action films that children shouldn't go and see, because they were full of proper violence and villains who were horrible and did nasty things to nice people, and there was loads of swearing and perhaps some boobs.

And the violence was really crunchy and bloody - not like when people get shot in 12-rated action films, and just fall down extravagantly like we used to when we played war or cowboys and indians when we were little.

There was an action film like that made not so long ago, Wanted - which was gleefully foul-mouthed and brutal and I loved it because it earned its 18 rating and poked you in the eye with it.

There was another Punisher film made a little while ago, which I never saw - and now they've made this Warzone one. And it's another action film that properly deserves its 18 rating and wears it with pride on its bulletproof chest.

The Punisher is a Marvel comics character, like Spiderman or Mr Fantastic (the stretchy dude out of Fantastic 4). But where Spiderman will worry and angst at you, and Mr Fantastic will build a clever contraption to somehow invert your nefarious plan onto your own head, The Punisher will come around to your house and blow it up and shoot you loads of times with massive machine guns and then probably impale you on some of your furniture as well, if you've got some spiky furniture.

And if you haven't, he'll probably bring something sharp to impale you on - because he plans ahead like that.

So Warzone is a proper 18, with brutal, nasty, splattery violence and evil villains who threaten small children and sad widows. It also has ample swearing for my purposes, but sadly no boobs. Not to worry.

A brief and unnecessary synopsis would go like this -.

In a smiley prologue, policeman Frank Castle has a picnic with his lovely family. They all get shot to shit by mobsters, which spoils the picnic. Frank becomes The Punisher - a man who has no truck with the law and simply annihilates organised crime in his own way.

His own way being mostly to blow it up and shoot it. A particularly sadistic crime boss crosses swords with The Punisher, before Frank drops him into a bottle-crushing machine.

The poor thug is cut to pieces, and then shortly stitched back together into the hideously deformed/scarred/messy Jigsaw - still a crime boss, only with a face that looks like badly repaired steak - and still very much pissed off at The Punisher.

They cross swords again.

So that's the story.

Punisher: Warzone is a number of interesting things. It was clearly an expensive-ish film, because it's very well made. It looks terrific and the effects are brilliantly done. Performances are good: either stoic and granite-like or foaming panto lunacy, as required. It's well put together, directed and edited. I can't remember the music at all, so at least that was unobtrusive.

But that's all much of a muchness, because the main thing Warzone is is stupendously violent. Mind-bogglingly so.

It is more violent and certainly gorier than many recent so-called horror films that I've seen. In the opening sequence alone, there are shootings, beheadings, stabbings, throat-slittings, and upside-down spinning on a chandelier with twin sub machine guns.

The Punisher manages not only to mangle a man up in a bottle-crushing apparatus, but also: blow some parkour motherfucker limb from limb with a grenade launcher. Shotgun a fat man's head off from the other side of a dinner tale. Lara-Croft-twin-handgun-off another fatty's head while he's sitting on the khazi. Punch a young dude's face right into his head. Impale some poor sucker on a spiked pole (I told you he would!), set a man on fire. Shoot innumerable poor saps in the head at close range with innumerable guns (pistols, revolvers, machine guns, sub machine guns, rifles, everything). Machine gun a crook's legs off. Cut off some heads with his massive machete-esque knife. Stab. Stab.

He really spoils their day.

He gets his nose broken at some point as well, but then manages to fix it with a simple pencil - even though he's not a doctor.

Essentially, Warzone is an incredibly good bad film.

It is this sentence - "mad ex-cop kills criminals, really violently" repeated visually for an hour and three quarters.

If that sounds like your sort of film, and if you are more likely to be glad than sad to see a man's head come off with a bang, then it is brilliant.

I loved it so much I have kept the recording to watch again when I get the chance.

Eight. For violent entertainment.