Comic Tales: The Punisher – Extended Cut
When crooked businessman Howard Saint’s son is killed in an FBI sting operation Saint wants the man responsible, undercover FBI agent Frank Castle (Thomas Jane), dead. He sends his men to kill Castle and his family but, while they manage to kill his wife and son (along with a large proportion of his extended family), they fail to kill Castle himself. Big mistake! Frank comes after Saint looking to dish out a little punishment.
The Punisher isn’t your usual Marvel Comics superhero and Jonathan Hensleigh’s film isn’t your usual comic book movie. This is a throwback to the ‘80s action films, featuring the sort of extreme brutality you don’t see often in action films anymore. It’s surprising that, in an era where a Die Hard movie gets a PG13 rating, the studio had the gumption to go for an R rating rather than tone the film down for the teen market.
Hensleigh didn’t just direct the film, he also co-wrote the script and it’s reasonably faithful to the source material. Its a little uneven, the origin section drags a bit and the likes of Roy Scheider and Samantha Mathis are wasted in underwritten parts, but when it gets going it really hits the spot. The film’s high point is the fight with The Russian, a hitman hired by Saint and a character straight out of the comics. It’s so exuberantly violent that I couldn’t help smiling as the pair crash through walls and pretty much destroy Castle’s apartment. From there on out it’s almost nonstop action as The Punisher takes down Saint and his army of hired guns.
