Review: Punisher War Zone
Marvel Comics' Deadly Vigilante Returns to Film for Complete Reboot
Dec 5, 2008
Punisher: War Zone Synopsis
Present Day New York City: Organized crime rules the city, and business is going well. However, all criminals are aware of the vigilante justice that roams the streets and rooftops, eliminating organized crime one person at a time, and try to avoid being "The Punisher's" next target.
On the evening of the latest plan to bring in an illegal shipment of chemical weapons into the city, made man Billy "The Beaut" Rusotti (Dominic West), informs his don that he has arranged for the deal to go down without a hitch, and that said deal should go off without any problems.As if on cue, Frank "The Punisher" Castle (Ray Stevenson, Rome) crashes this latest mafia party, and proceeds to murder, slash, shoot and punch his way through anything and anyone that moves. Still seeking revenge after four plus years, having lost his wife and two children in a mob hit, Castle seeks to indiscriminately kill any wrongdoer he happens to get his hands on, forever ridding the world of corruption. He does so calculatingly, and steadily. He has had practice, and his craft is improving.
Escaping the aforementioned mayhem relatively unscathed, Rusotti and his men retreat to his warehouse/bottle recycling plant, seeing no further hurdles affecting the upcoming shipment deal, and leaving him sole beneficiary of the deal proceeds, seeing as the rest of the Family was just butchered by Castle.
Little does he know, The Punisher has tracked them down, and will stop at nothing to take them out. In the process of taking down Rusotti's team, Castle shoots down one of the henchmen, who he later finds out was wearing a wire (thus, an undercover fed posing as a mobster lieutenant). Horrified at this, Castle, takes down the majority of the Rusotti men, including Rusotti himself, who gets thrown face down into a glass bottle crusher, permanently disfiguring him.
As the movie progresses, we see how Castle tries to come to terms with killing an innocent honest undercover agent, tries to make amends in order to help out the widow Angela Donatelli (Julie Benz), and daughter Grace (Stephanie Janusauskas), all the while staying one step ahead of the Punisher Task Force, hot on his trail.
(Note, look for Suite101.com's exclusive interview with Julie Benz, about her involvement in the film)
As Rusotti emerges from his trauma with a new alias of "Jigsaw" (matching the patched up look of his stitched and botched facial reconstruction), he vows to take down Castle and everything he stands for, all the while spreading chaos and destruction to the city.
Punisher War Zone Overall Analysis
In what can only be described as a film made solely for its marginal fanbase, Punisher War Zone doesn't even try to excuse the level of hyper violence exerted by the main character. Whereas many critics are likely to describe this film as "senseless gratuitous violence, gore and lack of plot", said critics must be made to understand the source material, and that anything less than what appears on screen, would result in, well, the previous two incarnations brought to the screen, one starring Dolph Lundgren, the other starring Thomas Jane. In other words, inadequate to the subject matter.
Granted, Punisher War Zone makes Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction look like Mary Poppins, however the gratuitous intensity of exploding heads and limbs doesn't come as a complete surprise, from this dark comic book character.
If anything, Ray Stevenson at least looks and sounds the part. He plays the character not so much as an empathic ex-soldier whose grief is inconsolable, but rather a man so morally dead from the loss of his family, that he has become a cold extension of the very instruments he uses nightly to dispatch the criminals he hunts down.
A problem with previous versions, was that the character either became too involved with secondary characters, spending half the movie talking out the plot or establishing partnerships in the process of crimefighting. Stevenson's Punisher is a man of very few words, letting his guns, knives, and rocket launchers do the talking for him.
Dominic West (300, The Forgotten) is badly miscast as Jigsaw, coming off as more goofy than actually threatening, aside from the somewhat impressive makeup job. His transformation into Jigsaw tries too hard to emulate the growing insanity DC Comics' Joker underwent in Tim Burton's first Batman film, once he fell into a vat of chemicals, in a warehouse too!
Any villain must have a supporting cast of colorful henchmen, Jigsaw's only notable accomplice is his brother James "Loony Bin Jim" Rusotti, played by genre actor Doug Hutchison, known for offbeat characters seen in The Green Mile and The X-Files TV show. Portrayed as a mentally unbalanced cannibalistic psychopath, Loony Bin Jim appears overexagerratingly dangerous, but again here, his portrayal is a bit over the top, and becomes a source of laughter more than terror.
As for Julie Benz, despite her ability to act well in most projects, she isn't given enough screen time to really apply her craft, as such she is reduced to the rold of damsel in distress, but makes the most of it. Thankfully, it is a relief to see that the screenwriters wouldn't try and placate viewers by even attempting to connect a recent widow and a cold hearted vigilante, in an unlikely romantic link.
Alltogether, Punisher War Zone is a bloody good time (pun very much intended), given its unapologetic approach to crimefighting. It reaalllly doesn't pull any punches, and what's more, it doesn't try to insult its fan base, by toning down the visuals and viscera. If that was its prime objective, well mission accomplished.
7.5 out of 10, for staying true to the source material, and for fun, escapist (though exagerrated) action
 |
