Ok, let's start with what's good with this movie. A potentially good cast, a great story to springboard from, and basically a chance to start fresh after that Dolph Lundgren version. Original comicbook story has Vietnam vet Frank Castle (Thomas Jane) taking the law into his hands after the Mob kills off his wife and kids. The new millemium version has Castle as a retiring undercover FBI agent, and then ups the ante by having the Mob kill off his entire extended family (yes, even the katulongs *lol*). The bad guys are crime king Howard Saint and his right-hand man Quentin Glass, and are played by talents who do bad guys in their sleep (John Travolta and Will Patton, respectively). Hollywood casting of course, means including a couple of hotties (Laura Harring and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) to provide the eye candy (and plot devices). The supporting characters are extracted from Garth Ennis' (Preacher) stunning revamp of the book ("Welcome Back, Frank"): the characters who live in Frank's apartment building (Joan, Spacker Dave and Mr. Bumpo), and the assassin known as The Russian (wrestler Kevin Nash aka Diesel in an unrecognizable blond spike). The bad? Characterization's a bit wimpy - Travolta in particular, does a poor rehash of his role in Swordfish. They could also have expanded Harring's callous character (the Mrs Saint) - she does give the go-ahead to wipe out Castle's whole family, after all. And there's the inevitable hint of a potential romance between Castle and Joan (why else would you cast Rebecca Romijn-Stamos?), which definitely doesn't work (good thing they held off on the smooching!). The Russian also was a bigger-than-life chatty assassin, and this script just turns him into a simpleton brawler (i know, you can't cram all those details in this movie). There's also a Johnny Cash/El Mariachi assassin, whom Castle barely survives by using a ballistic knife (again, an element borrowed from the book). The action scenes leaves a lot to be desired (hey, imagine this material in the hands of Michael Bay *s*). Tampa Bay (Tampa Bay??) also replaces NYC as Castle's hunting ground (hint, hint: Bay wreaked havoc in Miami in Bad Boys 2). Still, there's a lot of potential in having Thomas Jane as the Punisher than Ben Affleck has in being Daredevil.
if you want to punish someone, who you gonna call?
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