Welcome back, Frank?
Produced by (then) Lions Gate Films, The Punisher (2004) stars Thomas Jane as Frank Castle, an FBI agent who's finished his last assignment and is ready to enjoy retirement with his family. However, the son of mobster Howard Saint (played by John Travolta) was killed during Frank's last job, and Saint orders a hit on him and his family in retaliation. Castle's whole clan is wiped out during a family reunion and he is left for dead. Frank recovers, though, and heads to Tampa to seek revenge on Saint. When he's not making Saint's life miserable, Castle is knocking back shots of Wild Turkey in a run-down apartment building occupied by three other tenants who try to provide moral support for the hard-as-stone, nothing-to-lose vigilante in the making.
Full disclosure: I've never followed an actual Punisher title. That maybe shocking to hear to some of you, given all the macho, muscle-bound action movies (including a straight-to-video Punisher movie starring Dolph Lundgren) that I grew up watching in the 80s. I've seen Frank make many an appearance in many other Marvel books, but I have yet to read any of the numerous series starring Marvel's iconic anti-hero (created by Gerry Conway, John Romita, and Ross Andru). That's going to change, but for right now, I can only judge the film as is.
Honestly, I was conflicted at the start of this retrospective. I liked the movie then, but was always unsure of its approach. On the one hand, first-time director Jonathan Hensleigh uses- I guess what he feels is- a more realistic take on the character. That's right, kids, origin story. We get to see Castle's journey from being an ordinary, law-abiding, family man to becoming an urban vigilante. There's a lot more becoming in this movie than there is punishing. At this point, the origin story has become a formula for every single comic book movie coming out. Not only was it was starting to feel all too familiar, but it also felt unnecessary for the character.
On the other hand, it's a little unfair to dismiss the movie now just because it is an origin story. It is still Hollywood's go-to formula for superhero movies. Get used to it. With that, The Punisher (2004) is an interesting experiment, because it is a more grounded approach. That's more likely the reason why Thomas Jane was chosen to play the title character. He's nothing like the macho standard used to draw Frank in the comics. Jane's an unassuming looking guy. It would make the Frank's arc more convincing. He may not be dishing out loads of punishment until the climax, but it's interesting to actually see the transformation.
The movie itself is an agreeable, if not entirely memorable, crime drama. What makes it stand out are the dirty touches that grace the sunny location (in this case, Tampa, Florida), the three apartment tenants (one of which played by X-Men alum, Rebecca Romijn), an Ennio Morricone-esque score by Carlo Siliotte, and John Travolta making one of his less-embarrassing post-Battlefield Earth appearances on film.
I know this version of The Punisher is not going to be for everyone. It's no secret Hensleigh was inspired by action films of the Seventies, and some might argue he should have gone more Dirty Harry with this movie and less Death Wish. However, you can't hold it against a film if it is trying to do something different and doesn't fall on its ass. We've seen plenty of comic book movies do that, but The Punisher '04 is surprisingly not one of them.
The Punisher (2004)
3 out of 5 Cap shields
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