4. Punisher: War Zone

Punisher: War Zone
Lexi Alexander, 2008

Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) kills bad guys. He accidentally kills an undercover agent. He kills bad guys. He befriends the agent's family. He kills more bad guys. He eludes the cops. He kills bad guys. Also, he kills bad guys.

Take a heaping bowl full of gleefully over the top violence, mix in a beautifully bleak and twisted deadpan sense of humor and a dash of half-assed political commentary, cook it under a completely unmotivated (and completely awesome) primary-colored lighting scheme (with bonus neon!) and serve it up on one of the most perfect bits of comic book casting this side of Tony Stark, and what do you get? A meal made up completely of abstract metaphors, which is almost as terrific as Punisher: War Zone.

This movie, from a story and character standpoint, is complete trash. But it may well be the best-made trash I've ever seen - completely aware of its nature, but without slipping into the laziness that tends to characterize that sort of thing. That kind of makes it something else entirely. Art? Maybe. The key to all of this, beyond the technical skill of everyone involved, is Ray "Titus Pullo" Stevenson's performance. While everyone else (especially Dominic West) goes completely over the top at every possible opportunity, he plays Castle in a very low-key, almost deadpan fashion. It should be completely at odds with the rest of the movie, the sort of thing that would tend to sink a film, but it works because it actually serves the character. By not playing things up, Stevenson's Castle winds up feeling completely out of step with the world, which, frankly, he is - at least until the violence kicks off. Once that happens, he's shoving chair legs through people's faces and blowing up parkour fanatics with rocket launchers. Suddenly, he belongs. I've got to be honest, it's subtle and abstract enough that I almost wonder if it was intentional, but either way, it works.

Really, though, that's all gravy. It's not why you watch a Punisher movie. Come for the fence-impalements, old man beheadings, face shotgunnings, axes to the chest, and bottle-crushing machine accidents (recycling is dangerous), stay for the potentially unintentional character depth. Then come back for more fence-impalements. At any rate, I'm probably being too kind with my rating for this movie, and may need to re-assess later. But for now, I'm kind of giddy over it, and that counts for something.

8.5/10