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My review of the film The Punisher
Version 0.2
Copyright © 2007 by Zachary T Smith
All rights reserved.

Acting: ****
Plot: **
Story: ****
Dialog: **
Direction: ***
Editing: (horrible)

The Punisher (2004), based on the comic book by the same name, is a movie that could have been good. Ah, only if.

Perhaps one could say the same thing about the comic book, if memory serves. The story is straightforward. FBI agent Frank Castle takes part in a sting operation, in which a local mob boss's son is mistakenly killed. At the funeral for the son, the wife of the boss, who is herself a former prostitute demands that Castle, who is now basking temporarily in the sun with his large extended family before going into hiding, must be killed. Oh, and she notes, the entire family too.

This massacre occurs and is the cause of the rest of the movie, which is a huge revenge fantasy played out, juxtaposed with sitcom-like banter from the agent's innocent neighbors. This would be fairly ridiculous, because after all what mafia wife would demand that 30 people die in restitution for one? And how dumb would a mafia husband be to let himself be controlled by such a woman? However this is just a device. The massacre occurs to emphasize that Castle, who is shot multiple times and left for dead, has suffered the worst possible defeat. He has effectively died himself and cannot turn back from his cause of revenge.

People experience things like this all the time, like that woman who found a finger in her Wendy's ice cream. The Rubicon was pretty much crossed for her, too.

What saves the Punisher story is (A) the fact that revenge fantasies are a part of the human psyche, and (B) almost every actor except the robotic John Travolta (and the actress who plays the mafia wife) does a decent job of reading his or her lines and exhibiting realistic human emotions.

What actually kills this film is the editing. Far too many spans of silence could be eliminated to tighten up the action. This leads me to a suspicion that the editor was either a recent film grad, or the product of Beverly Hills inbreeding. It's bad work like this that fueled the public's zeal for "indie" films in the 1990's.

Despite the film's glaring flaws, if you like the idea of the film then you should rent it. But get it from a library so that you don't spend more than $2. After all, John Travolta's in it.

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