Movie Review: Punisher - War Zone

The Punisher: War Zone (2008)

I forgot to upload the review for this movie, despite watching it around the same time that I did the other two pre-MCU Punisher movies! And... and I think that's mostly because I really didn't really like this one as much as the previous two. 1989's The Punisher was somewhat forgivable due to how relatively old it was, and 2004's The Punisher is probably the best out of the non-MCU live-action adaptations. 

Punisher: War Zone, released in 2008 and explicitly noted to be yet another reboot, tries to go for a less 'origin story' vibe, tries to make it less about Frank Castle dismantling a criminal organization, and brings in several plot points from the comics to spice things up. Headlining the antagonistic side of things is Billy "Jigsaw" Russo, one of Punisher's comic-book nemeses, who gets his origin story here and is accompanied by his psychotic cannibal of a brother, "Loony Bin" Jim. Dominic West's utterly hammy performance as Billy Russo is easily the highlight of the movie, with the rather random sequence in the middle of the Russo brothers (heh) walking around giving a whole-ass speech to recruit the various ethnic criminal groups with what's essentially a modified US army recruitment speech. 

Another aspect that is actually rather mature is the effects of the Punisher's ruthless war against criminals, adapting an arc in Punisher MAX where Frank accidentally kills an undercover cop and has to deal with both the moral and emotional fallout. Both the dead policeman (and his family, which become recurring characters throughout the movie) as well as the fact that Punisher essentially created his own villain by torturing Billy Russo and not finishing the job, would be a nice little critique and exploration on the whole ultraviolent 'Punisher' vigilante. In fact, the Netflix show does a somewhat decent sorta-attempt at this. There's even a minor character, Carlos Cruz, who was a former gang member allied with the good guys that Frank has a visceral reaction to. There are many aspects that would've made this a nice exploration about morality and redemption, and when the Punisher method works or doesn't work.

But Punisher: War Zone is... it tries to explore these themes, but at the end of the day it just handwaves everything -- rather conveniently -- just in service of continuing the action. We get the angst built up, of course. Obviously the dead cop's wife is super-angry at Frank and no soulful puppy-dog-eyes or money is going to bring her husband back. But all of that is handwaved aside hard when terrorists like Jigsaw and his goons show up, kidnap and threaten to kill her and her daughter, meaning that Punisher's ultraviolence gets 'redeemed' by default.

The aforementioned gang member, Carlos? There's some headbutting with Frank, but that plot point ends up, again, kind of handwaved aside when Carlos gets tortured and brutally left to die by the Russo brothers. At least this one had some sort of a satisfying ending with Frank sharing one last manly-bro moment with him. The second act really does focus a lot on the Punisher wanting to hang up the proverbial cape after being traumatized by killing that undercover cop. 

And... at the end of the day, the movie is more about the action scene, first and foremost, and I unapologetically am entertained by the movie because of it. We get some hammy acting from the secondary characters (Billy's old boss, as well as Billy himself), and even if some of the over-the-top acting is a bit ridiculous... again, I'm here to enjoy the glorious over-the-top violence. It's just that it's a bit off whenever the movie tries its best to go to the deep discussion about the morals of vigilante justice and the redeemability of criminals... and then Frank casually murders one of the lesser antagonists just to get Colin Salmon's character to curse and I laugh at it. 

And... in a sense, I guess that's okay. The movie's focused more on the action and the gore, with some moments that are in rather stark contrast to some of the more hammy scenes like Jigsaw's recruiting moment, or everything about Loony Bin Jim. We get a fair amount of Punisher's allies killed (including some civilians who are absolutely sweet and did nothing wrong), there was the brutality of Billy Russo's origin story, and there's a nice stab at trying to have a rather thematic storyline...

But I do think that was where it falls short slightly because it really did feel like we're building up to something... and then the movie just goes into an action scene and a hostage scene and another action scene. Admittedly, the action is pretty dang fun, and I can't argue about that. It's just that I felt like I was promised more in the first act, and we really didn't get much of it. Frank and his remaining allies unleash some gangsters upon Jigsaw's army of gangsters, and then the Punisher has to face off a sadistic choice of saving his friend or the civilians. 

Which, I do think is where some of my biggest frustrations with this movie lies -- Ray Stevenson is a pretty good Punisher, and the script clearly had some ideas on where to go. You can have your cake and eat it; you can have all of this over-the-top comic book ultraviolence and still wrap up Punisher's angsty character arc. The comics do it all the time! But... but as a violent action movie, it was pretty enjoyable. And I think these merits are what Punisher: War Zone should really be judged for. It is just a shame that I really did feel like there's a huge, somewhat wasted potential here.