Frank Castle, a.k.a. the Punisher, finally got his full story told in the recent Netflix series, but before that, cinema took the tactic of reimagining him in one-off movies with different styles and creative teams. First was Dolph Lundgren’s “Punisher” (1989), which is oddly flat and emotionless; then came Thomas Jane’s “Punisher” (2004), a slightly better quippy actioner; and finally there’s Ray Stevenson’s “Punisher: War Zone” (2008). The four years between versions of a character must be a record for shortest gap.
An altered backstory
“War Zone” – directed by Lexi Alexander, on a short list of female superhero film helmers — could’ve been a sequel to the 2004 film except the writers (Nick Santora, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway) slightly alter Frank’s tragic backstory. In this timeline, he had a daughter in addition to a wife and son, and they were slaughtered by the mob after witnessing something they weren’t supposed to. In the 2004 film, Frank’s family is killed in retaliation for Frank taking out a bad guy while doing his job as a government agent.
Although I prefer running storylines rather than stop-and-start reinventions, the new timeline allows “War Zone” to be as stylistically different as it wants to be. The first notable difference is the lead role being recast. Stevenson is not as rangy of an actor nor as good-looking as Jane, which ironically makes him better suited to be the Punisher. This Frank Castle is dour and stoic, with not much going on behind his eyes, although he does have nominally more verve than Lundgren’s version.
“Punisher: War Zone” (2008)
Director: Lexi Alexander
Writers: Nick Santora, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway
Stars: Ray Stevenson, Dominic West, Julie Benz
“War Zone” tiptoes into the concept of the troubled brooder that Jon Bernthal would later perfect, but only in a superficial sense. Frank, who lives in a sewer and comes out periodically to kill bad guys, accidentally kills an undercover FBI agent as the film opens. This is actually a narrative step further than where the Netflix series goes (Frank thinks he accidentally kills innocents in Season 2, but that turns out to be a frame-job).
Frank tries dealing with his guilt in a couple different ways. He tries to leave the vigilante game, but his gun-supplying ally Micro (Wayne Knight) talks him out of it. Then he tries to get the agent’s widow, Angela (Julie Benz), to kill him, but she declines. The movie doesn’t ask Stevenson to do much acting, instead relying on Angela’s daughter, Grace (Stephanie Janusauskas), to supply the humanity as a kid who immediately trusts Frank and feels safe around him.
Mostly surface appeal
Beyond that, “War Zone” is all surface appeal, and your mileage will vary depending on how much you enjoy practical gore effects. They are very good, admittedly. At one point, Frank delivers a punch that caves in the face of a bad guy, although most of the killings do not go so far into “Evil Dead” territory. More notably, Billy/Jigsaw (Dominic West) prances around the screen with hideous facial scars — one thing “War Zone” unquestionably does better than the Netflix series.
Also among the baddies is Billy’s brother, Loony Bin Jim (Doug Hutchison, Tooms from “The X-Files” Season 1), who pushes the movie into silly territory. Hutchison does his usual solid work of contorting his face into a creepy special effect, but it’s ridiculous that LBJ has martial arts skills that make him Frank’s toughest foe. He’s like a camp-horror version of Toad from the “X-Men” films.
That’s not to say “War Zone” would find its grim noir aesthetic without scenery-chewing villains. It has nice-looking frames of bleak city streets, I have no major complaints about the cast, and some of the shootout action inches toward “John Wick”-level quality with Frank’s quickness and efficiency. But that’s only part of the equation for a good product.
For example, there’s a moment when Frank and two of his allies are on a city sidewalk with wonderfully grimy neon lighting and steam rising behind them. But they exchange forgettable dialog and somehow don’t seem to really exist there because the ambient sound is muted from the mix.
As a pure (if flat) style piece, “War Zone” isn’t bad — it’s better than the 1989 version and more faithful to the comics than the 2004 version — and I can see why it has a cult following, although I can’t get behind the hipster contrarian argument that Stevenson is better than Bernthal. Even with the Punisher being among the easiest to describe among Marvel superheroes, he still plays better when he is drawn a couple layers deeper the vigilante archetype.