Punisher: War Zone (2008)

Genre


Director


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Cast

Ray Stevenson, Dominic West, Julie Benz, Colin Salmon, Doug Hutchison, Dash Mihok, Wayne Knight, Romano Orzari, Stephanie Janusauskas, Larry Day, Ron Lea, Tony Calabretta, T.J. Storm, Mark Camacho, Keram Malicki-Sánchez, David Vadim, Aubert Pallascio, Bjanka Murgel

Storyline

After his family was killed by criminals, ex-military man Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) became a vigilante known as the Punisher. After hunting down and killing hundreds of criminals for the past five years, he faces his most deadly foe yet: Jigsaw (Dominic West).

Opinion

As I said three weeks ago, I am a fan of the Punisher, and as I said back then, I have been completely shocked by how bad this film turned out to be, considering Green Street's Lexi Alexander made it. 

Action packed, Punisher: War Zone is still extremely violent - apparently brutality and blood is what the audience wants -, tedious, and definitely does not justice to the great comic book.

The result is pretty much the same, and since two different version of the Punisher is what we are dealing with, it comes natural to compare the 2004 film to this one. In this one there isn't much of a backstory, but at least it is faithful to the comic book, and I really appreciated that. Besides this, I struggled to find something else good in this film.

Silly, and lacking in logic, the plot is probably the worst thing about the film. But I guess tons of people will watch this for the action, and violence, so I won't spend much time on this. 

Another major issue concerns the Punisher's character. He is portrayed as a violent and ruthless man, not an avenger, and the last scene proves it. What kind of "good" man blows up somebody's brain just because he tried to rob his friend's wallet? That's just going around killing people, not getting rid of organised crime. 

Ray Stevenson was the perfect  casting as Frank Castle aka the Punisher. He perfectly fits the role, and he definitely is a way better Punisher than Thomas Jane. Dominic West also is pretty good as Jigsaw, but he could have done better in some scenes.


2 comments :

  1. Not many people actually watched this, regardless of how much action it has because it's just a terrible film. To be fair, though, it's so bonkers I reveled in its awefulness. It's so bad it's awesome.

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