Movie Review: The Punisher (1989)

The Punisher (1989)

So in my bid to attempt to review all of Marvel's older comic-book movies, there was a series that kind of fell through the cracks. Before the Spider-Man and X-Men series, before the Blade trilogy, before Daredevil or Ghost Rider or Fantastic Four or Iron Man, there was... The Punisher, in 1989, starring one of the symbols of that era's action movies, Dolph Lundgren. And it's so interesting to realize that this is Marvel's first superhero movie. Sure, cartoons and low-budget TV shows have been made about other Marvel properties... but ol' Frank Castle is the very first Marvel comics superhero to grace the silver screen.

(It's also the same year that Tim Burton's Batman hit the theaters, making it very interesting that the other side of the coin went for a completely different direction with their superhero offering).

And... and I think one needs to really keep in mind when you watch this movie. It's less a movie that tries to tell Frank Castle's origin story, or an iconic arc in the comic books, or even to properly give a 'modernized' adaptation of the Punisher... it's just taking a comic-book IP and applying it to an action movie. And for better or for worse, the Punisher was one of the least 'superhero' of all the superheroes. He doesn't have spider powers or comes from space or has a deal with the devil or uses wacky gadgets or shoots laser beams out of his eyes or any of those stuff. Take away his skin-tight skull bodysuit (and take that away, they did) and the Punisher is just a psychotic, vengeance-driven man who's burned by the world and is trying to drive 'punishment' to the gangsters and criminals and the scum of the Earth that evade the law. 

And... and it's so interesting to note that so much of Frank Castle's comic-bookiness is glossed over and told to us briefly in the news reports leading up to the cold open, and a brief flashback and a very well-scripted monologue that Frank (buck-ass nude for some reason) has before the whole gangster storyline begins. There is some bit of the comic-book character that seeps through with Frank's interactions with children recalling his own, but it's very superficial. They even changed the origin story (I had to look up if the change originated from the comics) from being a Vietnam war veteran to an undercover cop whose family was killed in a car bomb meant for him. 

And I think it is intentional. The movie doesn't really go out of its way to identify any of these guys as superheroes, and the 'Punisher' is a moniker that actually feels like a nickname instead of a superhero pseudonym. The entire plot of the movie comes off like a regular action movie between several somewhat-colourful factions -- the mafia boss Franco and the incoming yakuza led by Lady Tanaka. Both have stereotypes associated with the portrayals of their respective criminal gangs in full display, but Tanaka gets to be a bit worse since she goes around kidnapping the children of these other mafia bosses, leading Punisher to go through his mid-movie character development where he realizes that his 'punishing' has led to some innocents getting caught in the crossfire, leading to him going on the reactive crusade to save the mafia kids from the yakuza. 

While all of this is going on, we've got a B-plot of Detective Jake Berkowitz, who was Frank's old partner, who goes around trying to solve the crimes and bring Frank back. Berkowitz works with a plucky new sidekick, but while I do praise the acting of Louis Gossett Jr, the entire subplot was kind of there just to give exposition to Frank's backstory more than anything; and to give the police a role in the movie. The movie kind of grinds into a halt any time the police are arguing about the Punisher and Frank Castle and whether he even exists -- which is a huge shame since this subplot really should be about Berkowitz either realizing that there are some criminals beyond the scope of the law (giving a morose justification to why the Punisher needs to exist) or something along those lines. 

Wrapping up the cast (aside from the annoying kids and wacky sub-boss enemies) is 'Shakes', probably the movie's most 'comic-book' character in that he's basically one of those sidekicks that has a single personality trait and says it over and over again. In Shakes' case, he's a wacky hobo that yells a lot of Shakespeare, and it really does get a bit old. 

And... the movie is fine. The plot is straightforward and is more of a vessel to deliver us some action as the Punisher guts and murders his way through the criminals. There's, of course, some bizarre sequences which I think has been meme'd around a lot, like how the Punisher, in this incarnation, inexplicably takes a page out of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and hides in the sewers, driving around in his pimped-out motorbike through the sewers as the reason why he's able to avoid the police for so long. There's the repeated scenes of the Punisher meditating, buck-ass nude, as he mentally recites the otherwise pretty cool comic-book narration. There's the scene where he uses a remote control to give Shakes a bottle was also rather bizarre. 

But I felt like the Punisher was more of a reactionary character for a good chunk of the movie, just ducking in and out of conflicts done by the Franco/Tanaka war until children gets kidnapped, Shakes yells at him a bit, and Frank Castle finally decides to storm the bad guys' base to save the kids, if nothing else. It's simple, and it gets a bit cheesy at times with the action scenes, but there was some reasonable effort put into this even if it does feel like they're perhaps trying a bit too hard to make this a 'serious' movie. 

The climax is, I think, pretty all right. There wasn't too much buildup into it and the child actor that plays Franco's child isn't the most compelling one, but after teaming up with Franco to fight against Lady Tanaka and wipe out her forces, Franco ends up pulling his gun on the Punisher and the two of them fight until Punisher has to kill Franco in front of his own kid... and gets the kid to hold the gun towards his head in a cool -- if utterly psychotic -- move. 

Ultimately, I did enjoy this movie for what it was... a 80's action movie with Dolph Lundgren in it, working off as best as it could with a 'we're doing an adaptation but not really but kinda'. It's hardly essential watching, but I did enjoy the one and a half hours I spent watching it.