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Punisher : War Zone

Reviewed by Edward Moran

 

When they served popcorn and water at a press preview of “Punisher: War Zone” in a tony Bryant Park screening room last week, I knew it was going to be an augury of something. I was right: this Lionsgate whimper is about as pop and corny as a film can get, and thin, tasteless and transparent to boot (odorless is another story). But wait. I must give credit to the director for at least some impaucity of good intentions: Lexi Alexander had a good idea, there, to do a barebones spoof of Batman in Gotham City. Get a load of that ever-antagonistic Billy “Jigsaw” Rusotti (Dominic West), who has a mug that certainly looks like The Joker’s would after falling into a glass-crushing machine (which he—Jigsaw—accomplishes in an early scene). Good idea, really: that sutured face omnipresently reminds us that this flick is all parody, sweet and simple. But where is this mythical Gotham City? Is it New York or New Jersey?

There are those aerial shots of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings that seem to have been inspired by those racks of eight-for-a-dollar postcard at an Eighth Avenue tourist trap. But then there’s the decidedly un-New York subway system with its oddly mislabeled Fifth Avenue and Thirteenth Street station. And then there are foggy streets and facades that remind one of the backstreets in Jack the Ripper’s London. Artistic license, I guess, or a low-budget special effects department.

The plot is as uncomplicated as that of any Saturday-matinee horse opera. The promoters say it far succinctly than I ever could: “Waging his one-man war on the world of organized crime, ruthless vigilante-hero Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) sets his sights on overeager mob boss Billy Russoti.” Oh, there is a damsel in distress, the aptly named Angela (Julie Benz) who spends most of her time cowering under a table with her preteen daughter Grace (Stephanie Janusauskas). Good guys, wise guys, all around the town.

I say all of the above out of mercy and good will, for it is only by imagining “Punisher: War Zone” as a senseless B-movie that one can kick back and enjoy the wholesale mayhem. How else to explain why so many of the critics at the press screening ended up just laughing out loud in seemingly inappropriate places? There is no redeeming social value here, no hint of an angst-ridden nihilistic auteur seeking to create an expressionistic statement about postmodern mob culture, just a jigsaw (and a Jigsaw) of misfitting pieces that involve gangland hits, home invasions, rooftop chases, and wholesale vengeance. Suburban Marvel comic book fans will perhaps love “Punisher: War Zone” for the way it confirms their core beliefs that Gotham-on-Hudson is still rotten to the core. I prefer to think of the lines from Marianne Moore’s poem “New York”: watching this film is like contemplating “the scholastic philosophy of the wilderness/to combat which one must stand outside and laugh/since to go in is to be lost.”

Directed by Lexi Alexander
Written by Nick Santora, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway
Based on Marvel’s Punisher comic-book series
Director of photography: Steve Gainer
Edited by William Yeh
Music by Michael Wandmacher
Production designer: Andrew Neskoromny
Produced by Gale Anne Hurd
Released by Lionsgate and Marvel Knights.
Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes.

Cast: Ray Stevenson (Frank Castle)
Dominic West (Billy Russoti/Jigsaw)
Julie Benz (Angela)
Colin Salmon (Paul Budiansky)
Doug Hutchison (Loony Bin Jim)
Dash Mihok (Martin Soap),
and Wayne Knight (Micro).