Blu-Ray/Movie Review: The Punisher (2004)

 

The Punisher is a 2004 action movie starring Thomas Jane, John Travolta, Rebecca Romijn, Laura Harding, Ben Foster, and Will Patton. The story is entertaining and well done for what it is. The movie basically involves two revenge stories. In the first, Travolta's character, crime boss Howard Saint, seeks revenge on Frank Castle for the death of his son during an FBI bust of a smuggling operation. The second involves Castle getting revenge on Howard after Howard orders Frank and his family killed when he finds out Frank's identity. Frank survives the attack on his family and takes on the persona of The Punisher. 

The original Blu-Ray release is a very bare-bones, single-disc release. You just get the theatrical edition of the movie without any bonus content. So, if you only get movies on physical media when there is a lot of bonus content, you may just want to look for this on a streaming service.

This was a comic-book-based movie that occurred before they became popular, so the studio did not invest in anything near the amount of production that goes into today's comic-book movies. Hence, this mainly had B-level actors (depending on where you want to put Travolta and Rebecca Romajn on the hierarchy). There is not a ton of action aside from a few sequences, but it is very violent in those sequences. The storyline is as much about Castle forming the plan to take down Saint and his empire as it is about the execution of the plan. The writing and acting are okay. Both are somewhat over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek at times. Thomas Jane plays the emotionally detached Castle very well but does keep a sense of morality and goodness to him, even when he is doing very bad things. Travolta plays a very good bad guy, even though he does overact at times. Ultimately, the movie is something where if you have a couple hours spare time you can have it on in the background and still easily follow what is going on. It is certainly not the best comic-book movie or the best live-action version of The Punisher, but it is worth checking out if you do not expect it to be anything more than it is.