The Punisher (2004)

WARNING: Liberal use of hyphens and exaggerated percentages ahead.

Product of Lions Gate Films.
Directed by Jonathan Hensleigh.
Starring Thomas Jane, John Travolta, and Will Patton.

There is a LOT of fighting in this movie.  I enjoy an action movie, and I watch a lot of them.  Especially when they are related to a video games and comic books.  However, I’m quite sure that 78.4% of this movie is spent with fists flying or bullets penetrating.  Sometimes with no background music score at all.  The reenactment of an urban Rambo at 1:40:00 is pretty classic to say the least.
I loved every scene with John Travolta in it.  The man is an actor for the ages.

This movie has to rank up with my favorites with its choice of characters.  Jane’s portrayal of a down-trodden, revenge-seeking Frank Castle is excellent, though he could have used some better directing (more on that later).   John Travolta, as always, makes the perfect bad guy.  Now, in some other movies that I have seen, and not necessarily in chronological order in respects to this one, he also plays the role of the bad guy quite well (a la “The Taking of Pelham 123” and “Swordfish.”)  My favorite role in the movie goes to Ben Foster and the part of “Dave,” the awkward counter-culture neighbor.  His role is comical, though I can only imagine that it’s difficult to be so shaky yet calm, intelligent yet misinformed, and all awkward at the same time.

Then “The Russian” at approximately 1:15:00 into the movie.  97% says that either this is a silly little “Rocky” shout-out, or John Travolta hired Waldo-on-steroids to kill Frank Castle.  This fight is entertaining, however, even throwing in the slamming-the-good-guys-head-in-the-fridge bit.  Did I mention he’s immune to shrapnel?

When reviewing a movie, I normally try to give props to the director and kudos to their particular style of bringing a film together.  This movie, however, is not an example of that.  There were plenty of scenes in this movie I found myself thinking, “I would be better off watching a kangaroo jump through the jungles of Antarctica, because this makes about as much sense to the relevance of the movie as this scene.”  I mean I understand some of them being in there to be funny, and maybe one or two are director trademarks.  But damn.  There’s a scene where a dude walks into a diner, plays him a song, then leaves.  No big deal.  This man then chases him down and tries to kill him.  I can assume he was hired by the antagonist, but there’s no way to be sure.

Story-wise, this movie is great.  Acting is great as well.  Direction, though… Mr. Hensleigh is not going to be one of my favorites.  Therefore taking down the value of the acting, though it was comical at some points.

Overall, I give it a C.  Good try, but it could be way better.