The Punisher first appeared in the comics in 1974 in an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man. He showed up as a guest star in many comics over the next twelve years before getting a miniseries by Steven Grant and Mike Zeck in 1986 which was a huge hit. That led to a slew of Punisher comic books, particularly in the late 1980s and 1990s when the more violent heroes (see also Wolverine and Ghost Rider and Lobo) were becoming more popular.
That popularity also led to a movie with Dolph Lundgren in 1989 that was not much of a hit and barely got released. When superhero movies took off in the early 2000s, another shot was taken with Thomas Jane in 2004, and then another with Ray Stevenson in 2008.
The Punisher was originally a Vietnam veteran named Frank Castle. He came home from the war only to see his family murdered by mobsters. (In Marvel, they were called the Maggia, their version of the Mafia.) This sent him over the edge, and now Castle goes out as the Punisher, using his combat skills to kill bad guys, making him something of an antihero. His initial appearance has him going after Spider-Man, who has been accused of murdering Norman Osborn.
The character’s backstory was very obviously inspired by Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan, a.k.a. the Executioner. However, while Bolan went on after wiping out the Mafia to become a government agent in adventures that are still published to this day (your humble rewatcher has actually written two of them…), the Punisher became a vigilante, whose level of sanity has varied depending on who’s writing him.
The first movie was produced by New World, who were the owners of Marvel Comics at the time. However, New World’s financial issues led to a rather scattershot release—it debuted in Europe in 1989, not actually showing up in U.S. theatres until 1991, and that only in very limited release. Starring Dolph Lundgren, who had made a name for himself as Rocky’s Russian opponent in Rocky IV, the movie changed his backstory to that of an ex-cop, and had the main bad guys be Yakuza rather that Mafia. (They filmed in Sydney, and it was probably easier to get Japanese actors anyhow…)
Marvel had a deal with Artisan Studios to produce films based on some of their characters, and the first (and last, as Artisan was bought by Lionsgate and shuttered) was a new take on the Punisher. The character was moved to Florida because it was cheap to film there. The movie did decently enough at the box office (despite awful reviews) to warrant a sequel, but creative issues led to the “sequel” being the completely unrelated Punisher: War Zone with Ray Stevenson replacing Thomas Jane in the title role. Both the 21st-century takes used the comics as more direct inspiration than the 1989 film, with Jane’s movie based on Punisher: Year One and The Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank, while Stevenson’s used several elements from the comics, notably the characters of Jigsaw and Microchip.
None of the movies were critical successes, and all three were plagued by production and release difficulties. The character would next be seen on screen as part of Marvel’s Netflix slate, first in the second season of Daredevil (a meeting partly inspired by the Punisher’s appearance during Frank Miller’s first run on DD in the 1980s) and then in his own series, which will debut next week.
“What the fuck do you call 125 murders in five years?” “Work in progress.”
The Punisher
Written by Boaz Yakin
Directed by Mark Goldblatt
Produced by Robert Mark Kamen
Original release date: October 5, 1989
After five years, Dino Morretti has been acquitted of the murder of Detective Frank Castle and his wife and children. There’s also a vigilante known as “the Punisher,” who has been killing mobsters for the past five years. Lieutenant Jeff Berkowitz—Castle’s former partner—believes that Castle isn’t dead and that he’s the Punisher. But there’s no evidence as to who the Punisher is, even though he leaves knives and shell casings at every scene and forensic science did actually exist in the 1980s. Those knives and shell casings are in a box on Berkowtiz’s desk—why they’re there instead of bagged in evidence is left as an exercise for the viewer.
Berkowtiz is, in fact, correct, as Castle has been living in the sewers, waging a one-person war on criminals. He’s killed more than a hundred mobsters in five years, and he adds to that count by killing Morretti and his thugs and also blowing up his house.
At this point, Berkowitz is something of a joke in the department, since nobody else believes that Castle is alive. But Castle helped get Berkowitz out of alcoholism and Berkowitz owes him. Berkowitz explains this to Detective Sam Leary, who pretty much bullies her way into being Berkowitz’s new partner by saying that she also believes that Castle is the Punisher. She also figures out that Castle’s hideout maybe is underneath the city, the one place in five years Berkowitz hasn’t looked.
There are two responses to this razing of the local criminal elements. The first is Gianni Franco coming out of retirement to unite what’s left of the Mafia families. His first act after doing so is to bring in a huge batch of heroin, but Castle screws that up by massacring the mobsters and sellers and leaving the dope for the cops.
The second is Lady Tanaka of the Yakuza deciding to move in and take over. Franco refuses her offer, and they go to war. The first salvo of the war is Tanaka kidnapping the children of Franco and all his lieutenants and holding them for ransom.
Castle finds out about the Yakuza moving in from his snitch, a drunken ex-actor named Shake, who always speaks in rhyme for no compellingly good reason. He trashes one of their casinos by way of making it clear that they’re not welcome.
Tanaka has no intention of ransoming the kids back to the mobsters, preferring to sell them into slavery. She also kills the mobsters who show up to pay the ransom. Franco, however, has refused to play ball, so he avoids the death spree for now.
Castle attacks one of the Yakuza hideouts, but gets his ass handed to him. Tanaka tortures him and Shake both, but he manages to escape and find out where the kids are being held. Castle enacts a rescue, involving lots of gunplay and a stolen city bus, and gets all but one of the kids away—the exception is Franco’s son Tommy. However, his purloined bus is stopped by a police blockade, and Castle is forced to surrender.
Berkowitz confronts Castle in his cell, wanting to know why he faked his death, why he didn’t come to Berkowitz, why he went crazy and killed over a hundred people. Castle is less than forthcoming, and Berkowitz leaves in disgust and resigns from the force. (Hilariously right when his star should be back on the rise, since his crazy theory was proven correct.)
The transport truck bringing Castle to prison is ambushed by Franco’s people. Franco wants Castle’s help in getting Tommy back, and he’s taken Berkowitz prisoner as leverage. Castle agrees.
Castle and Franco storm the Yakuza headquarters. Berkowitz frees himself from Franco’s dumb-as-posts thugs and calls in the cops, but by the time they arrive, Castle and Franco have killed, basically, everyone. Tanaka holds a knife to Tommy’s throat and tells Franco to eat his gun, which he’s about to do to save his son, but then a badly beat-up and wounded Castle bursts in and throws a knife at Tanaka’s head. Franco repays Castle by threatening to kill him, but Castle manages to stop him—with unexpected help from Tommy, who doesn’t want to see his father kill someone. However after Castle kills Franco, Tommy threatens to kill Castle, but the kid can’t pull the trigger. Castle tells Tommy that he’d better not become like his father and disappears just before Berkowitz enters.
“Good memories can save your life.”
The Punisher
Written by Jonathan Hensleigh and Michael France
Directed by Jonathan Hensleigh
Produced by Avi Arad and Gale Anne Hurd
Original release date: April 16, 2004
In Tampa, Mickey Duka is buying arms from a German arms dealer named Otto Krieg. Along for the ride is Bobby Saint, the son of Howard Saint, a mob boss. Bobby is fronting some of the money for the sale. The FBI shows up and shoots Krieg dead. Then Bobby rather stupidly raises his gun while surrounded by dozens of armed federal agents, and gets himself shot to pieces.
Krieg and Bobby’s bodies are taken away, and we find out that “Krieg” is really Agent Frank Castle, ex-Delta Force, on his last undercover operation before transferring to a cushy desk assignment in the London office. Castle is looking forward to spending time with his family. To that end, he goes with his wife and kid to Puerto Rico for a family reunion.
Saint is livid at the death of his son, and he expends tremendous resources to learn that Krieg was really a federal agent, and also still alive. He sends Bobby’s twin brother John along with his chief enforcer Quentin Glass to Puerto Rico, where they massacre Castle’s entire family, culminating in running over his wife and son. They shoot Castle twice and blow up the pier they shot him on, but Castle survived, went limp, and the explosion blew him out to sea, where he was rescued by a local fisher.
He heals up over five months and returns to Tampa. Amazingly, despite being shot twice, he shows no scarring on his torso when he goes shirtless. (Which he does, y’know, a lot.) He is displeased that the FBI has made no arrests in the murder of his entire extended family.
Castle moves into a shitty apartment that he fills almost entirely with weaponry. The other three apartments in the building are rented by Joan—a diner server who has had a series of abusive relationships—Dave, and Bumpo. The other three are fascinated by Castle’s routine, which involves stockpiling weapons and armoring his car.
Duka is bailed out by Saint, and then gives Saint the name of the buyer, which is what led Saint to Castle. However, five months later, Duka is out working for Saint, still, with no mention of his arrest on federal charges for gun smuggling. Anyhow, Castle kidnaps Duka and fake-tortures him. Duka has little love for the Saint family, so he caves pretty quickly and becomes Castle’s inside man. Duka also reveals that Saint only wanted Castle dead—it was his wife, Livia, who wanted Castle’s entire family to die.
One of Joan’s exes shows up, and Castle scares him off. In return, Joan invites him to join her, Bump, and Dave for dinner, which Castle is reluctant to accept.
Using Duka’s information, Castle tails Saint, Livia, and Saint’s lieutenants, learning that Glass is a closeted homosexual. He sets events in motion to make Saint think that Glass and Livia are having an affair.
Castle also trashes one of Saint’s money laundering operations (stealing some money for himself and donating more money to people on the nearby street) and then one of the transfers to a pair of Cubans for whom Saint launders money. The Cubans are not happy and Saint isn’t either. Saint sends two different assassins after Castle, both of whom Castle takes down, one of whom trashes his car (Castle just takes the assassin’s car, a green ’68 Plymouth Satellite), the other of whom nearly kills Castle. His three neighbors nurse him back to health.
Glass and John arrive with some thugs. Joan hides the still-badly-injured Castle while Bumpo and Dave stall the bad guys. They torture Dave, but he doesn’t give him up. Castle is touched (and surprised) by the consideration, and Dave says they’re family. Bumpo takes Dave to the hospital.
Saint finds out about the nonexistent affair between Glass and Livia thanks to Castle’s machinations, aided by Duka. Saint kills both Glass and Livia and then puts out a reward on Castle. Saving them the trouble of finding him, Castle ambushes a gathering at Saint’s club. After killing all his subordinates, Castle confronts Saint, tells him how he tricked him into thinking his gay lieutenant was having an affair with his devoted wife, and then burns him alive while dragging him from a moving car.
Castle considers killing himself, but decides to continue punishing the guilty. He moves out of the apartment, leaving behind a crapton of Saint’s money for his three neighbors.
“Let me put you out of my misery.”
Punisher: War Zone
Written by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway and Nick Santora
Directed by Lexi Alexander
Produced by Gale Anne Hurd
Original release date: December 5, 2008
Mob boss Gaitano Cesare is elderly and dying, but he still runs the Mafia in the New York area. He holds a dinner party at his palatial mansion, which has to be either in Westchester County, out on Long Island, or in New Jersey. I mention this only because there are two NYPD detectives, Soap and Safiotti, watching the house, and no matter where it is, it’s out of their jurisdictions. (There are no mansions like that within the city limits. Trust me.)
Castle attacks the house and kills most of those inside. The only ones he misses are Billy “the Beaut” Russotti and his lieutenants. Safiotti gets the draw on Castle, but all he does is tell Castle where Russotti probably went, and then he punches himself in the face, reporting to Soap that Castle subdued him.
Russotti is in a bottle recycling plant, where Castle attacks him and his people, leaving more dead bodies. Russotti himself falls into a bottle crusher, and somehow survives, but his face is a mess, his prided good looks ruined. He takes on the nickname Jigsaw and swears revenge on Castle.
Castle has other problems, however. One of the mobsters he killed at Cesare’s was an undercover federal agent, Nicky Donatelli. Castle is devastated, and considers hanging up his skull shirt. His armorer, Microchip, tries to talk him out of it in his below-the-subway headquarters, eventually convincing him that he should at least go after Russotti. His attempt to make reparations to the Donatelli family is met with disgust and rejection by Donatelli’s widow, Angela.
Donatelli’s partner, Agent Paul Budiansky, wants to know why the NYPD hasn’t been able to capture Castle. Captain Ross assigns him to the “Punisher Task Force,” which consists of Soap in the basement.
Castle learns from Carlos Cruz, a friend of Microchip’s, that “Jigsaw” has hired three new guys who do a lot of legwork for him. Castle tracks them down, kills two of them, then extracts from the third that Jigsaw plans to go after Angela and Grace Donatelli before killing him, too.
However, Budiansky manages to capture Castle, mostly because the latter pulls his punches when engaging in fisticuffs with a federal agent. At Castle’s urging, Budiansky and Soap send a patrol car to the Donatelli home, but they arrive after Jigsaw and his crazy-ass brother James (a.k.a. Loony-Bin Jim; Jigsaw broke him out of the asylum) have already gotten there, and they kill the two officers. When the two don’t report in, Budiansky has Soap drive him and the handcuffed Castle to the Donatelli house, then Budiansky goes in, leaving Soap with Castle.
Soap, of course, frees Castle and he goes in to remonstrate with the bad guys. Castle shoots one thug in the face who’s left, to Budiansky’s annoyance. Castle takes Angela and Grace to his underground lair for protection while Jigsaw and Jimmy are taken into custody.
Jigsaw has an ace up his sleeve, though—he was providing port security for the Russian mob, who are bringing a biological weapon into the U.S. to sell to terrorists in Queens. They give up the full details, enabling Homeland Security to capture the Russian mobster, Christa Bulat, and impound the weapons. In exchange, Jigsaw and Jimmy get immunity, and also a police file on Castle’s known associates. (By the way, no law-enforcement agency would ever give up a police file to a civilian, not even as part of a plea bargain.)
Armed with this information, Jigsaw kidnaps Microchip. When Castle doesn’t hear from him, he goes to check up on his friend, leaving Cruz to watch the Donatellis. Jimmy breaks into Castle’s hideout and kidnaps Angela and Grace, leaving Cruz for dead.
A livid Castle teams up with Budiansky, who wants to rescue the Donatellis. Jigsaw’s immunity agreement ties his hands legally, but Budiansky instead lets Bulat’s father know where Jigsaw can be found. While Jigsaw’s people are tied up in a shootout with the Russian mob, Castle is able to go in and rescue the Donatellis, and also kill both Jigsaw and Jimmy.
Angela tells Castle that she and her husband used to argue about Castle all the time—Nicky thought that Castle was one of the good guys. One wonders if he still thought that as he died…
“Oh my God—now I have brains splattered all over me.”
It’s interesting to watch these three takes on the Punisher because—while all three, truly, are the same film—it’s instructive to see how the details differ, and what works and what doesn’t.
Most fundamentally, the movies improve each time in terms of casting the lead. Dolph Lundgren is, in a word, terrible. He grimaces a lot and mutters his lines and stares blankly into space. Thomas Jane actually manages to make Castle a person in the opening parts of the movie, making the blank affect he has as the Punisher much more effective, because we actually see the change. Even so, though, Jane’s character reminds me a lot of the character the Punisher is based on, Mack Bolan, who’s pretty much an automaton, and spectacularly boring. (I do like how Jane delivers the monologue about the meaning of the word “upset” during his brief conversation with his old FBI partner and their boss on the subject of the lack of arrests for the Castle family massacre.)
It’s left to Ray Stevenson to actually bring nuance to the role. Stevenson’s facial expressions are subtle and pained. You can see the agony of his life etched on his face, from the visit to his family’s grave to his realization that he killed a federal agent to his unwillingness to let Budiansky go down the same dark road he’s on.
Lundgren, at least, is in good company, as his movie is chock full of terrible acting, the only exception being Lou Gossett Jr., who actually decided to make Berkowitz a character rather than a caricature or cliché. Nancy Everhard (who we just saw as Christa Klein in The Trial of the Incredible Hulk) doesn’t elevate Leary beyond Person Berkowtiz Talks To, Barry Otto’s Shake is embarrassing, Kim Miyori is a tiresome stereotype as Tanaka, and Jeroen Krabbe can’t even be arsed to manage a tiresome stereotype as Franco. (I’ve never understood why anybody ever hires Krabbe to act, as I’ve seen no evidence that he’s capable of it.)
The villains, sadly, don’t get much better. John Travolta as Saint is better than Krabbe, but that’s a low bar to clear, and mostly Saint comes across as a low-rent version of the villains Travolta played in Face/Off and Broken Arrow. And Dominic West leaves no piece of scenery unchewed as Jigsaw. Much like Jack Nicholson before him, West is far more effective as Russotti the gangster than he is after the transformative experience that turns him into Jigsaw, at which point he devolves into a giggling goon (not helped by a weak-tea psychotic performance by Doug Hutchison as Jimmy).
It’s too bad, as West is capable of much better than this (cf. The Wire, 300, John Carter, etc.). But then, so is most of the cast, which is of a higher overall caliber than the other two—Colin Salmon, Wayne Knight, Julie Benz—but none of them turn in their best work here. I do appreciate the effort West and Benz made to put on Noo Yawk accents—they’re even pretty consistent, even if West’s is sometimes a bit labored.
We get three different origins for the Punisher in these three movies, with the first two adding a law-enforcement background to Castle’s military past (in the comics—and also in Netflix—he went straight from the military to his family being killed). Jane’s movie, at least, lets us see Castle with his family and his wife and kid are people with dialogue instead of dewy-eyed memories, which adds to the character’s tragedy, and makes us invest in Castle a bit more.
What I find most fascinating about these three movies is that each one gets closer and closer to the comic book source material, and it’s the one that hews most closely to the comics, War Zone, that is the strongest movie (of, admittedly, a weak bunch). There’s a lesson in that, methinks. In War Zone, Castle’s family is killed in Central Park after witnessing a gangland murder, just like in the comics, and the characters of Microchip and Jigsaw are also from Marvel. To be fair, Jane’s movie also pulls plenty of elements from the comics, in particular Joan, Bumpo, and Dave, who are brilliantly performed by Rebecca Romijn, John Pinette, and Ben Foster.
War Zone is one of only two films that Marvel Studios produced under its Marvel Knights sub-studio—the other being Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengance. The same year as War Zone, they also put out Iron Man, which turned out to be a better harbinger of things to come from Marvel Studios.
Next week, I’ll be reviewing Netflix’s take on The Punisher with Jon Bernthal, and on this here rewatch we’ll indulge in some early-20th-century nostalgia as we look at the 1990s takes on The Rocketeer and The Phantom.
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be one of the many author guests at Philcon 2017 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey this weekend, along with guests of honor Seanan McGuire (a.k.a. Mira Grant), Bed & Breakfast, Don Maitz, and Janny Wurtz. His schedule can be found here, and he’ll also be putting in time at the eSpec Books table in the dealer room.
As a child of the 80’s and early 90’s, I have fond, nostalgic memories of the first Punisher. But I haven’t seen it probably since my childhood. No doubt I would probably find it terrible now. Wasn’t there a shot of Lundgren’s ass or something? That seems to stick out in my memory for some reason.
Keith, any love for the Punisher short fan film, “Dirty Laundry“?
JM: Never heard of it, and I’m only doing officially licensed feature-length films in any case.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Austin: Yeah, twice we see Castle sitting naked in his sewer headquarters, and we get to see at least part of Lundgren’s gluteus maximus.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
So… You’ve written two Mack Bolan novels, yet you find the character spectacularly boring? How did you approach the novels?
Isn’t Ray Stevenson Volstagg in the Thor movies? So he’s on the list of people who’ve played two different Marvel characters on film.
I still think “the Punisher” is a silly name for a homicidal revenge freak. It makes him sound like someone who make bad guys sit in corners or go to bed without supper.
Christopher: In the first Bolan book, I had him undercover for half the book as a redneck mercenary, so he had to be in character for a big chunk of it. In the second one, I gave him an interesting sidekick for the mission.
Yeah, Ray Stevenson is Volstagg in Thor, Thor: Dark World, and Thor: Ragnarok.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I saw the second film when it came out and mostly recall being delighted by the ingenuity of the fake torture and the unique cruelty of convincing Saint his wife was cheating on him and then proving that was not possible.
I was going to mention Dirty Laundry too.
Describing it as a fan film does not really do it justice, it makes it sound like an amateur attempt by some ordinary Joes with a camcorder. It is actually a much stronger short film starring Thomas Jane, featuring cult favourite actor Ron Perlman.
I can understand you not wanting to give it a full write up Keith but could you at least please post an opinion on it in the comments here now that you know of it.
(side note – I’m pretty sure it was tor.com that revealed its existence to me in the first place)
@8/ChocolateRob: There are a lot of fan films these days that are made with professional-level production values, and a lot that have professional actors appearing in them, but they’re still fan films. The term refers to any production that isn’t made or authorized by the owners of the property.
Jane will always be “my Punisher” because to me he just embodied the comic book version perfectly. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie around him was pretty sub-par. I truly wish he had come back for the sequel.
Definitely a +1 for the “Dirty Laundry” Punisher short starring Jane as well. It works really well.
That’s not to say Jon Bernthal hasn’t been amazing, and I hope the Netflix series takes the character to the broken, mentally-disturbed-and-needs-help place it needs to be in today’s world.
I remember being like 10-11 or so (90-91) when I realized that the Lundgren movie was a Punisher adaptation. It was not faithfully translated in my country, getting generic titles and dubbing that kind of disguised it as a generic action movie. Of course, lacking the skull on his chest (come on, they could have given him one on the jacket or something!), it was down to the knives to mark him as The Punisher. Nevertheless, I remember it as a fun action movie.
The Thomas Jane I found incredibly boring, and that stupid painted t-shirt was a bad excuse for a Punisher costume. The Ray Stevenson one is more in tune with the Garth Ennis comics, and he looks great as Frank, also has a good costume… but ultimately, it’s not really a good film. Then again, I find the Punisher boring unless he’s squaring off against or forced to work with another Marvel character, obviously a hero like DD or Spidey. We’ll see what happens with his Netflix show.
krad, I seem to remember than in some iterations in the comics, Frank did a stint in the NYPD after the military.
@1 – Austin: I remember Lundgren-ass too.
@5 – Chris: Cool, I had never realized Stevenson was Volstagg.
I’ve never been a Punisher fan, so I haven’t seen any of these movies. If Frank doesn’t punch a polar bear in any of them (as in “Welcome Back, Frank”), then I’m not interested. Not sure whether I’ll watch the Netflix series, either. Perhaps I’ll wait until someone puts a review of it on this site.
Well I guess I’ll just post the reception section from the Dirty Laundry Wikipedia entry then –
Ivan Kander of Shortoftheweek.co called the film a “love letter” to the Punisher character and a success. He also stated that the film “proves that fan films aren’t just for crazed geeks running around with their home video cameras anymore”. He did criticise the films for having a rather thin plot and predictable outcome for the villain but praised the production value.
Kyle Anderson of The Nerdist stated that the film was worth watching and stated that Jane should reprise the role of the Punisher again if another theatrical film was to be made.
Chris Sims of ComicsAlliance expressed that the film was interesting in that it showed the main character in a transitioning period between that of the 2004 Punisher film and how the character is portrayed in the comic books as the Punisher in the 2004 film was more concerned with getting revenge as opposed to waging a war on crime.
Brad Brevet of Comingsoon.ne criticized the use of Hans Zimmer’s The Dark Knight score, especially in the opening moments when the film’s antagonist appears with music playing from his car stereo, but stated that the short was otherwise solid.
At the time of its release Followingthenerd.co described the film as “arguably the best 10 minutes of screen time The Punisher has ever had”.
Jon Bernthal, who portrays Frank Castle in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has stated that he took Jane’s performance in the short as inspiration
Quoth ChocolateRob: “Describing it as a fan film does not really do it justice”
“Fan film” isn’t a judgment call, it’s a description. It just means it’s not officially licensed and amateur in the most literal sense.
If Kobe Bryant plays a pickup basketball game on the streets of L.A., it doesn’t make it an NBA game.
I’m sure the film is fine, and I may take a gander at this week……
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
If your doing watches of the Rockeeter and The Phantom what about completing that trifecta and doing the Shadow as well.
@10 I agree that Jane really captured the spirit of Punisher. I’ve never seen the third movie so I’ll have to see if I can stream it or find it at the library.
I thought Jeroen Krabbe was okay in The Living Daylights and The Fugitive. Not a great actor by any stretch, but he can be adept at playing a weasel. I’ll give him that.
dornwolf: Because The Shadow isn’t based on a comic book. Also, this week is the last time I’m doing three movies in one post for a while, as it’s really too much for one week.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@14 Very true but while I’m not a sporty person I imagine that if a well regarded sports personality came out of retirement to publicly play some games with the locals it would certainly be of interest to the media and public at large. That was all I meant by my comment. Though I admit that it may come across that I’m aggressively trying to hound down a review because ‘It deserves to be included’ I’m just interested in your quick perspective on it if you find the time.
Thanks for the time you have put into all these superhero rewatches. It’s fun to see you taking on such a large project. I’m especially looking forward to your look on The Rocketeer. I was ten when I saw it in the cinema and it certainly has a special place in my heart. I especially love James Horner’s score, I rate Main Title – Takeoff over anything he did in Titanic or Braveheart, it’s just full of the feeling of pioneering adventure at the end of the golden age of aviation. I of course love most other things about the film too… well except for the terrible floaty heads design on the vhs/dvd cover, the art deco poster was so much better (I have a framed copy on my wall).
@17
I enjoyed Krabbe’s villain in The LIving Daylights immensely. His rendition of the line ‘God forbid this could lead to nuclear war!’ if someone presents me with a minor problem.
My two favorite ridiculous elements of the Thomas Jane movie:
1. Rebecca Romijn Stamos’ character being stuck working in a greasy spoon because nobody had ever bothered to tell her that people who look like Rebecca Romijn Stamos can make real money as models and actors; and
2. Frank being chased onto a tiny pier that’s more of a boat dock by a big-ass SUV, which is in the very next shot seen pursuing him back onto the shore in the opposite direction. How and where in the hell did it turn around?
@21/Stephen Schneider: Not every beautiful woman becomes a model or actress. Of the three most beautiful women I’ve ever personally known — all of whom I consider more beautiful than Romijn — one was a teacher until she became a full-time mother and home schooler; one was a stage actress/singer (with a brief Broadway career) until she got married; and one was a librarian who went on to be a social worker, I think. There must be plenty of women who don’t want a career based solely on their looks, who want to prove themselves some other way. And given the allegations coming out of Hollywood lately (which, let’s face it, are the airing of what’s always been an open secret), it’s hard to blame any woman for not wanting to expose herself to that culture of exploitation.
For that matter, do you have any idea how many aspiring actors pay their bills by working in greasy spoons and other menial jobs? Only a small percentage of actors, regardless of looks, are successful enough to “make real money.” Unless you’re an in-demand movie star or have a steady TV-series gig, acting is an unsteady source of income, working paycheck to paycheck and never knowing how long a drought there will be before the next good gig.
Jeroen Krabbe was also spectacularly good in a rarely seen movie called KING OF THE HILL (1993), about a kid temporarily abandoned by his parents during the Great Depression, who barricades himself inside the apartment to prevent their eviction and the confiscation of all their belongings. Krabbe’s the clueless, distant Dad who tells the boy what a good baby he was, who learned soon not to cry as Dad was never going to answer anyway.
The character played by Rebecca Romijn Stamos was very much not a character she would have played, in her comics incarnation, not without significant glamoring-down. (She was a nervous wreck.)
@22/Chris:
I haven’t seen the movie since it was screened for us critics, but as I recall, nothing about the character indicated she was working where she was because she considered it either her true calling or a way to pay the bills while she did pursue her true calling. From what I remember, we were supposed to accept her as a hopelessly trapped product of a nowhere burg. You know, an average Jane. But Hollywood has a real problem showing us average Janes the way they actually appear in real life; almost every woman we encounter in a mainstream movie has to be physically and facially stunning, because the men who make mainstream movies would like to live in a world where those are the only women that exist. So sure, we’re going to run into a John Pinette in that diner, but a Kristen Schaal or a Melissa McCarthy? Not unless they’re there for comic relief.
Thomas janes punishet was by far, the best of the three. God sits this one out..and the letter he wrote near the ending about the boot sargent..ending with…no…’punishment” were brilliant.’ Dolph was terrible..and war zone was just poorly performed, inept and gratuitous violence’ terrible.
@24/Stephen Schneider: The point is, it’s a fantasy conceit that every beautiful woman in the world is a model or actress waiting to be discovered. It doesn’t work that way. There aren’t nearly enough openings in those fields for every beautiful woman on the planet, and there are countless reasons — my list was by no means intended to be exhaustive — why a woman that many consider beautiful would not want to be a model or actress even if they were offered the option.
And frankly, it’s pretty sexist to look at a woman who happens to be beautiful and say “It’s unbelievable that she isn’t in a career based on her looks.” I mean, most male characters in Hollywood are played by good-looking men, but you don’t hear people expressing surprise that their characters aren’t actors or models. I mean, why aren’t you complaining that Dolph Lundgren’s Punisher was a cop instead of a professional bodybuilder?
Well put, Christopher.
Now it looks like I misbehaved. ;)
Careful, or you’ll be…punished. (Sorry, but someone had to say it.)
@26/Chris:
Actually, it does kind of bother me that the lead role of the Punisher keeps getting cast with guys who are more traditional leading-man types, because that’s not what the character looked like in the comics. He was older and more, I don’t know, granite-faced? Like most characters in comics, he was ridiculously ripped, although I guess you could explain that away as the result of an intense training regimen he felt necessary to his war on crime.
Reimagining him as a himbo hunk is in keeping with one of the unfortunate trends American cinema has charted over the last few decades, which is to eliminate any lead roles for actors who kind of look like normal folks (and, increasingly, who are older than 30). One of the many reasons why I avoided the remake of The Taking of Pelham of 1 2 3 is that the basic casting negated something I loved about the original: All the characters looked like people who would actually be doing those jobs. Middle-aged, kind of frowsy and beaten down, as if they spent most of their lives stuck in an underground bunker drinking lousy coffee. Switching out Walter Matthau for Denzel Washington just chips away at that verisimilitude, especially if no other character bothers to point out that the boss is as handsome as Denzel Washington, so what is he doing working a crappy job for the MTA?
Which is the kind of world we live in, no matter how much we would like to pretend it isn’t the case. This is a capitalistic, surface-oriented society, one that offers disproportionate rewards to pretty people for being pretty. And is the case with most other things, the path is narrower for women. Unless you have a higher calling you want to pursue, if you were born with the physical attributes of Rebecca Romijn Stamos, you’re probably going into a career that rewards you for looking like Rebecca Romijn Stamos. No matter what helpful function greasy spoon waitresses serve in society, it isn’t a job people do because they just have a moral and intellectual passion for it. They do it because they’re stuck in it.
As I recall the movie, we don’t see any indication that her character aspires to anything else vocationally. Why doesn’t anyone else in the film remark upon how unusual it is for someone who looks like her — not just in terms of the genetic gifts she was born with but the Hollywood hair and makeup she takes care to cultivate — to be slaving away in this crummy job in this crummy part of town, when she could at least pick up a modeling gig somewhere? Which is exactly what would be said in real life? To underline the point, why don’t the male members of the diner staff display a pulchritude that’s in any way commensurate? Frank may be atypically handsome for his surroundings, but at least where he is and what he’s doing appear to be a choice. Romijn-Stamos’ character appears to have no choice and no options. She’s just unaccountably stuck, in the same way the actress is stuck in a crappy movie made by people who don’t like to look at the sort of women they’d encounter in real life.
@31/Stephen: But there’s a big difference between saying “It bothers me that the character is more attractive than in the comics” and saying “The character’s attractiveness means their most likely profession is acting or modeling.” You’re only saying the latter about a female character, because our society more reflexively defines women based on their looks than men.
And you’re still making the naive assumption that wanting to be a model/actress is the same as succeeding as a model/actress. You’ll find far more actresses working as greasy-spoon waitresses to pay the bills between gigs than you’ll find actresses raking in millions from movie contracts and commercial spokesperson gigs. And the difference isn’t about their relative levels of beauty. There are lots of beautiful women out there, and only so many job openings. You claim it’s unrealistic for a beautiful woman to be in an unglamorous job, but you’re the one making the unrealistic, fairy-tale assumption that success is just handed to anyone who happens to look good.
@31 – Stephen: Well, I was happy that they cast Bernthal as the Netlifx/Marvel Studios Punisher, as he’s definitely not made from the “leading man hunk” mold. And come to think of it, Stevenson isn’t that type either.
@31: I’m not familiar with either the Punisher comics or the movies, but of the four actors who’ve played him the only one I’d describe as a “traditional leading man” is Thomas Jane. To me, the term evokes George Clooney, Tom Cruise or Cary Grant. I suppose Dolph Lundgren is handsome in an Aryan ubermensch sort of way, but he’s known mostly for playing action roles (he’s also quite ripped). And while neither Ray Stevenson nor Jon Bernthal is ugly by any means, they both have large noses and ears which give them a rather thuggish look.
I take your large point, though; one reason I never got into watching The Flash is because the trailers made it look like Beverly Hills 90210: The Superhero Edition. Of course, pointing out that Hollywood has an unwholesome obsession with youth and beauty is nothing new. And I also agree with Chris: just because someone is good-looking doesn’t mean they can, or should, have a career in modeling or acting. As he pointed out, there are far more beautiful people in the world than there are jobs that require beauty.
Incidentally, I happen to know a quite stunning young woman who works as a waitress (though it’s at a steakhouse chain restaurant, not a greasy-spoon diner) and who recently did some modeling on the side. It’s just for a small local studio, though — you don’t get to be a supermodel when you live in a mid-sized town in Missouri. And even if she were to be “discovered”, I’m almost certain she would balk at doing lingerie or bikini photoshoots, which sadly seem to be pretty much required for a career in modeling.
Really, I think a lot of women in service jobs, like waitresses, receptionists, or dental hygienists, are hired because they’re good-looking. Society is still dominated by the male gaze, and so women whose job is to tend to the public are generally expected to be pleasing to the eye. Heck, the very existence of Hooters is just an atypically overt example of that pattern. So the premise that it’s somehow unrealistic for a waitress to be good-looking is really rather bizarre. I’ve seen a few really beautiful waitresses in my time.
Those are all some really good points. There’s still something about the casting and portrayal that bothers me, but I guess I would have to rewatch the movie to get a better, more up-to-date bead on it. Too bad the movie isn’t good enough to warrant it. ;)
But seriously… that boat dock scene!
36. Stephen Schneider: “But seriously… that boat dock scene!”
Not as bad as the car chase scene in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in Venice… a place famous for having canals instead of streets.
I’ve heard The Punisher: War Zone described as ‘Titus Pullo Wrecks New York’, and your description doesn’t put me off of that previous description. Ray Stevenson, while not an unattractive fellow, is not a classically handsome fellow. Just an average fellow you’d see at the grocery store, picking up some steaks to grill on the tiny grill he’s got on his apartment porch, maybe a potato to go with it in the oven.
That kind of guy.
I enjoyed the first two well enough, Janes’ being the better of the two. The third was not terrible until Jigsaw turned just cartoonishly evil; I enjoy over-the-top scenery chewing when done well, but this wasn’t. Just made it bad.
What I liked in the first: Lundgren did pull off the look of a guy supposed to be dead and living in the sewers fairly well; he was pasty and looked haggard. I also really loved the scene of them assaulting the Yakuza HQ and facing off against the dojo.
The second drew a fair amount from a run by Garth Ennis, in particular the people in the apartment and the Russian (which almost didn’t work, but Castle’s disbelief at how hard he was to fight made it work). I thought his setup for Saint was in line with punishment more than just revenge, and the dark twisted part of me loved the line about killing both his sons.
War Zone just really did not work for me, though. Stevenson’s depiction of Castle totally fell flat for me, and Jigsaw, as noted above, was too cartoonish.
Bernthal’s take on Castle is unbelievably spot on. That man is intense just standing there, and what he brought to the character blew me away.
I have just saw the original one. it was alright. I was four when it came out.
When it comes to comic book films I’m a ‘Cape’ man at heart (I enjoy everything about Enda Mode except her most famous expression of grotesque sartorial bigotry – those capes wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t over-engineered them in the first place!), so it will doubtless not surprise anyone that I’ve only seen the Thomas Jane PUNISHER.
Definitely enjoyed it though – his theme remains the definitive favourite in my book, being so relatively low key but still surprisingly emotive – and I’m not against the idea of watching the other films in principle, merely not especially interested in seeking them out.
Oh and I’m truly disappointed that nobody seems to have pointed out the EXCELLENT use of La Donna e Mobile during the most memorable TJ-Punisher fight scene (I’ll bet that one would have made Mr Garth Ennis smile) or the fact that one of the assassins he guns down is basically Johnny Cash … or the Man in Black, I’m not sure how to tell the difference.
RIP Ray Stevenson
Having now seen PUNISHER: WAR ZONE, one can only admire Frank Castle’s good luck when it comes to casting directors – four different actors and only one broadly held to be a misfire (Why they cast Mr Lundgren as any Marvel superhero but The Mighty Thor is beyond me) is an excellent record.
For my money Mr Stevenson and Mr Jane are neck-and-neck in terms of performance: the former looks more like
my idea of the character, but to my ears any Punisher who doesn’t sound like Thomas Jane doesn’t sound quite right (In an odd way making him the ‘Bela Lugosi’ of the bunch).