The Punisher: War Zone

When walking into the theatre to see Punisher: War Zone one should bring along a list of all the different ways the human body can be desecrated, and then proceed to check them off one by one in rapid succession.
Ray Stevenson takes over from both Dolph Lundgren and Thomas Jane in thier respective films (Jane's 2004 The Punisher, also starring John Travolta, suffers from a lot of problems but isn't the abortion others claim...then again, I'm not that big a Punisher fan...or a Marvel fan for that matter). Perhaps it is for the fact that I'm not that big a fan that I thought Punisher: War Zone was a pretty good time. Not a good time as in "wow, I'm glad that movie was made", but good time as in "I've nothing to do for 2 hours, and am bored with a friend of mine and we plan on drinking afterwards, so let's see a movie."
Stevenson does a farily good job here, imbuing Frank Castle with the 1.5 dimensions the action hero seems to embody. Stevenson is imposing enough to look like he can punch a guy through the face (which he does), and stone-faced enough to walk through an entire building full of adversaries shooting at him and not raise an eyebrow, his voice, or even his pulse. In fact, his ragged, gritty voice is probably the single best feature about the character (even though he doesn't even say anything until about 15 minutes in). We get about 2 or 3 minutes of backstory (his family was gunned down after witnessing a mob hit in a park) somewhere about 45 minutes into the movie, and we get a few hints of his past life when the characters of Angela and Grace are introduced to the story (their inclusion in his subway hideout was the butt of most of our wisecracks). Stevenson is probably the best incarnation of the Punisher we've seen onscreen to date, and he rides this movie from beginning to end.
And what a hell of a ride the first 15 minutes are: as my friend and I noted, the movie "just starts". No backstory. No exposition. None of that bullcrap. We are intrduced quickly to gangster Dominc West playing villain Billy Russoti (AKA Jigsaw), with an overly exaggerated Brooklyn mafioso accent and a wicked sneer. Jigsaw is looking to make his way up the mob foodchain, and the Punisher shows up at a birthday party for the head of the family and makes sure that Jigsaw gets his chance. Punisher breaks in and imposes greivous bodily harm on hundreds of gangsters before following Jigsaw to a mob-owned recycling plant to cover a shady business transaction (are there any other kinds?) Punisher shows up, the wrong dude gets killed, and Jigsaw is pushed into a bottle recycling machine, getting horrendously mangled in the first of two fucked-up encounters he has with our titular hero (his final confrontation with Punisher is just too needlessly excessive, but great). And with Jigsaw's mangling, we're reminded just how sadistic the Punisher can be.
The action is really what pushes this movie, with any sort of plot and/or emotions being merely coincidental. And the set pieces are staged with such irreverent camp that the violence is both shocking and amusing at the same time (how many other movies set up the expectation of a character about to get a cocaine tube shoved up his nose, only to end that expectation with a fist through said character's face?) And there is at least one kill that was so amusing literally everyone in the theatre (all 15 of us, myself included) applauded; I won't say what it that kill is...but let's just say Punisher puts his own spin on how to defeat a freerunner. People are horribly mangled but still manage to stay alive, and kills are executed with such a voracious energy that even if they are implausible, they're still fun to watch.
Director Lexi Alexander does a commendable job keeping the pace up for the most part (though the second act did drag slightly), and imbued each and every frame with enough neon and bombastic acting to remind the audience "Yes, this is a comic book movie." This is the sort of movie where Punisher can walk down New York City streets armed with about 12 different guns nad knives, and no one blinks an eye. Where a fat gangster will look down the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun and just saw, "Fuckin' perfect". Where NO ONE thinks to shoot Punisher in his head or legs or arms, the places not protected by a flak jacket. This movie is Over The Top, a trademarked creation of Lexi Alexander, who understands the absurdity of it all and just says, "Fuck it" to logic, coherence, and relevance. And though the movie drags for about 45 minutes in the second act, I wasn't ever bored. The inventiveness of the gunfights was also interesting, as it would naturally have to be (there are only so many ways to shoot a gunfight without it all looking the same).
As noted earlier, Dominic West's Jigsaw is played as braod as an eight-lane highway, almost as if Cesar Romero's Joker was playing Jack Nicholson's Joker playing Richard Widmark's Tommy Udo on speed. Doug Hutchison as Loony Bin Jim Russoti (Jigsaw's brother) was genuinely creepy (he eats a psych ward orderly's liver, for Christ's sake), but also quite annoying. I found myself at a paradox with him: he was so in-your-face as to be annoying and distracting, but I couldn't help but get excited when he and Punisher finally face off (although the fight was a bit of a let-down, but not too much of one). The rest of the cast includes Wayne Knight as Punisher's supplier of weapons and information, Microchip, and Colin Salmon (an actor I admire but wish got better American roles) as Paul Budiansky, a CIA agent. Dash Mihok as Martin Soap gets the best last of any movie I've seen in years ("Great...now I've got brains all over my coat") and Stephanie Janusaukas is decent as Grace, the daughter of Julie Benz's Angela Donatelli(although the character makes some abrupt changes in attitude without provocation...which was a blessing really since it added fodder to our riffing). Julie Benz is turning out to be the action-movie-go-to-lady between this and Lionsgate's other ultra-violent movie from earlier this year, Rambo. Unlike that movie, she plays a more active role here, and is perhaps the only "real" person occupying this carnival of a movie.
The production design highlighted Lexi Alexander's over-the-top approach to the story, each set imbued with garish color correction and neon lighting (this is the sort of movie where a neo-classical church, complete with battlements and flying buttresses, will also boast a gigantic, blue neon-lit cross). Each location and set has the familiarity of a place one might have seen in passing, but with just enough tweaking to make it feel slightly other-worldly. Also, the use of Vancouver to double as New York was glaringly obvious: just take a look at the subway cars (no New York trains look like that at all), and the subway stops also (there is no 15th St./9th Ave. stop along the A,C,E). Perhaps it's indicative of how engaging the actual story was that I took the time out to notice such things.
The cinematography was decent, although thankfully the scenes weren't cut in the ultra-fast, 2-frame style that I deplore.
The level of violence is what one comes to appreciate in movies of this sort, and Ms. Alexander doesn't disappoint. The blood and guts fly, and in gallons. It's insane to think that Lionsgate actually wanted to cut this movie down to a PG-13 (what's next? A PG-13 Die Hard...oh wait...), but it's great that they finally allowed the blood to fly. And with violence this cartoonish I didn't mind once (one character gets hacked with a fire axe, and in the next scene is completely alive, his arm cut off, and Punisher walks up and says, "You'll be fine!")
So if you're looking for a way to kill a dull evening (though for maybe less than the $12 my friend and I paid), and are in the mood for some comically over-the-top action, acting, and violence, you could probably do worse than Punisher: War Zone. You don't need to know the character, the history, or his relationship to the Marvel Universe, nor do you need to have seen the previous incarnation (I rescind my previous comment about Thomas Jane's movie...that sucked, aside from the fight with the giant Russian). The movie starts, a bunch of mobster's get mutilated, the Punisher glowers, and Wayne Knight curses a bunch, and you walk out and find a bar and discuss the most ridiculous of the fatalities therein.
The choice was between this movie, or Nobel Son. From what I hear and read, I made the wiser choice.

Not the best comic book movie, but it's no Catwoman, or Elektra. 6 out of 10.