Total Punishment…

Now…let me talk about the Punisher Movie.

No, not the one with Thomas Jane. For all the criticisms laid against that film, it was far more true than the one I am talking about. Some of you youngsters might be wondering, “Thom, what are you talking about? What do you mean ‘other Punisher movie’?”

I speak of this little gem starring Dolph Lundgren from 1989:

Soak that in a minute.  How hard is it to get the Punisher “right”?  Of all the Marvel and DC characters…who should be the least challenging?  Yeah, Frank Castle, dammit.

And yet?  Writer Boaz Yakin and Mark Goldblatt pulled it off.  Here is the Punisher, in a nutshell:

Frank Castle is a shattered shell of a man, pretty much a machine.  His sole purpose in life?  Kill as many crime bosses and their lackeys as he can.  Why?  A Crime Boss had his wife and kids killed.  Oh, and he wears a frikkin’ skull on his chest.  He’s a heartless, walking arsenal.
That’s a pretty simple thing to grasp.  Right?  And sure Lundgren plays a guy who kills the crime bosses and lackeys and his name is Frank Castle, and his family died.  But without the skull?  He’s just some guy who shoots people.  It would be like doing Superman without the tights.

And their Frank is absolutely tortured.  But Frank Castle is just dead.  And if you want to make him tortured?  You better have an actor who can…uh…act.  None of the characters get any development, there is no off the wall humor (which, granted, that was mostly brought to the book by Garth Ennis).  Just bland faceless “Crime Bosses” and a convoluted story.  It’s not entertaining-even in a bad way.  It just…man.

Watch this movie and see your appreciation for the Tom Jane/ John Travolta Punisher climb.

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