Film Review--The Punisher

The Punisher (1989)
directed by Mark Goldblatt
written by Boaz Yakin
starring Dolph Lundgren, Louis Gossett Jr., Jeroen Krabbe, Kim Miyori, Barry Otto, Zoshka Mizak, Nancy Everhard

Five years after a mob hit killed his family, a former cop named Frank Castle (Lundgren) continues his prolonged measures of revenge against various mafia families. As the story opens he has killed 125 people in five years and is wanted by the police to stand trial for these murders.

Frank Castle lives in the sewers and only seems to come up for air when he wants to off somebody. He’s convinced that ridding the world of the mafia will make him sleep better at night so he sets about eliminating as many of them as possible. The Yakuza step in and attempt to strongarm their American counterparts by kidnaping their children and potentially having exceedingly vile and awful things done to them for fun and profit. Castle as the Punisher manages to secure all of the children but boss man Gianni Franco’s (Krabbe) young son Tommy (Brian Rooney).

The film moves along at a steady pace but the action sequences are too cartoonish and boring to be of any use. There is quite a bit of violence in this film but it means nothing because one doesn’t quite feel it viscerally. Bodies fly all over the place but the plights of the victims prove to have no meaning in the end. They just drop dead from an unswerving amount of ammunition and they merely serve the purpose of offering up a shield that must be penetrated to reach the next level. Indeed, this plays like a video game with crap music and poor special effects.

Dolph Lundgren certainly makes for a legitimate contender in the action hero sweepstakes. He’s solid, believable, convincing, etc. He possesses all of the qualities that are necessary to create a character you can fall behind and believe in. Still, we don’t exactly get a real sense of his loss so subsequently his tirades do not make a whole lot of sense. There are moments revealed in voice over where he gets into the philosophy of his behavior but the film doesn’t expand upon these ideas and they are left unexplored. He is just a killing machine and it’s a real fault of the script that we don’t get to know more about this Frank Castle. He remains an enigma and this is something that does not serve the story at all.

The character of Lady Tanaka (Miyori) is a delectable side dish that proves to be as deadly as Nightshade. She is a cruel bitch who comes off as entirely elegant and graceful in her maneuverings. She is a bonafide ice queen who pierces the hearts of every man she encounters and can also ruin them physically through her ballet of martial arts moves that are quick, decisive and very painful.

The real problem with this film is that it has no soul. It’s just a series of violent acts for the sake of being violent. It is entertaining to a point but there is no reason to care about what happens to any of the characters save the Punisher whose sad plight generates perhaps a modicum of sympathy. The fight sequences lack a certain polish yet manage to come off as rudimentary and pedestrian. Plus there is too much wasted footage and the film could have used a more economical editing process to streamline the heavier scenes to make them more potent and necessary. Subsequently the energy is sapped out of the film leaving a husk that is filled with mere repetitions of carnage without end.

Tanaka’s daughter (Mizak) is a shining light amidst all the mayhem. She exhibits great skill and possesses the closest thing save her mother to artistry in her technique. She’s a worthy adversary and proves herself to be exquisitely capable of administering grievous bodily harm at every turn. Still, the film doesn’t use her enough and it satisfies itself with an endless array of cartoon brutality.

The story lacks nuance as it mainly comes down to the war between the American mafia and the Japanese Yakuza. It’s simply a matter of them murdering each other over the rights to certain territories. The Yakuza want to control every aspect of the Mafia’s operations and they are met with stiff resistence. So, the tots are nabbed and this leads mainly to the Punisher and Franco embarking on a suicide mission in order to wipe out the Japanese threat. These sequences are particularly laughable as hundreds of bodies pile up to save the life of a single child.

The real hero of this film comes in the form of the beleaguered head of the Punisher task force, Jake Berkowitz (Gossett Jr.) who was once Castle’s partner and has been pursuing him ever since he went underground. He’s a tough, no-nonsense cop who is determined to locate his great friend and to prove once and for all to himself that Castle is indeed the Punisher. Berkowitz is perhaps the only truly complicated character who is possessed by his hunt for Castle while attempting to maintain a semblance of a life. Again, we don’t get to know very much about Berkowitz as the film refuses to allow any psychological investigations into any of the character’s psyches. We are left with bare boned outlines that serve no real purpose in the end.

The performances in this film are adequate for this genre. Dolph Lundgren is vital and physically present throughout. His character lacks the depths that subsequent action heroes of our time have exhibited but essentially he carries the film rather effortlessly. Louis Gossett Jr. projects a calming decency throughout the film. His character conveys a sort of modesty coupled together with a tough guy exterior.

Overall, this film is passable but lacks any real purpose or meaning. There is a whole lot of violence here but it never moves above the level of even the most basic video game. It’s easily dismissible and the viewer is left to attempt to find something in the story that is worth believing in. Unfortunately, this search proves to be fruitless and all that is left is great swathes of carnage that do nothing in the end to transform silly gunplay into a film worth investigating. The characters generally come across as ciphers who are easily expendable. The death in this film is bland and not particularly thrilling in the end. There is simply no style here whatsoever.