The Punisher in Film – Part 1

Frank Castle, the Punisher

Essentially Don Pendleton’s Mack “The Executioner” Bolan dressed up as Nedor Comics Golden Age superhero The Black Terror, Marvel’s derivative vigilante the Punisher is mostly nothing more or less than a quasi-archetypal avenging character. Like many before and since, Frank Castle sets off a violent crusade against crime after loved ones – in this case his wife and children – are killed by the mafia. Although Marvel has allowed the Punisher to co-exist in the same universe as its superpowered characters, rather nonsensically neutering the character concept in much the same way DC has with Batman, he does achieve a compelling, if grim, power on his own urban turf, mostly because of the compelling theatricality of his iconic costume; black with a stylized white skull on the chest. Only the PunisherMAX series, innovated by noted writer Garth Ennis, kept it real at the price of amping up the gruesome scenarios, violence, torture, and characters so morally deformed they’d fit into a horror movie. At least, so I gather from Wikipedia and comic book review sites.

The Black Terror in his first appearance in 1941.

From the various interpretations available to filmmakers, there’s an entire range of Punisher styles to choose from. Of the three attempts to bring the Punisher to film, the most recent, Punisher: War Zone starring Ray Stevenson, is hardly worth considering. Setting aside the contemptuous critical consensus, the red-band trailer was so gory and ultra-violent that pushing the film off the must-see radar seems eminently sensible. I skipped that one. That leaves the 2004 film starring Thomas Jane, and the much-maligned 1989 film starring Dolph Lundgren.

Of the 2004 film, one can say this; it is slickly produced, well-acted, and cinematic. But the story is trash without the good manners, or good humour, to acknowledge itself as such. Instead, director and co-writer Jonathan Hensleigh yields to Shakespearean pretensions without the ability to manage the scale. Hence, a few amplifications. Not content with the death of Frank’s wife and children, Hensleigh arranges it so that his entire extended family, roughly thirty in all, are slaughtered on the orders of gangster Howard Saint or, to be accurate, Howard’s wife Livia. The rationale is straightforward, if off-target in the usual villain’s way – retaliation for a police sting involving illegal weapons that results in the death of the eldest Saint son. But the motivation is flimsy given Livia’s near absence of character other than that of gangster moll with a predilection for shopping and an arbitrary mean-streak more or less equal to her husband’s. Looking to Howard Saint, played with sneering gusto by John Travolta, won’t yield more character than that of the usual nasty deranged by jealously and cruel vindictiveness.


The whole ordeal of the massacre plays out interminably, with Hensleigh extracting as much discomfort as possible in presenting the victims chased and gunned down. Frank’s wife and son are particularly subjected to the indignity of a vicious, sadistic death by pickup truck, culminating in Frank himself being captured, beaten, shot, shot again in the chest at point-blank range, then left to sizzle on a burning dock. From here, it becomes an exercise in Frank evading death at the hands of two bizarre assassins sent by Saint – one a reject from Robert Rodriguez’s Mariachi films who croons his murderous intentions before acting on them, the other a massive boss-type opponent borrowed from a video game – while making half-hearted attempts to set up his own revenge against the Saints. He slums around a decrepit apartment building shared with the film’s only nod towards tenderness, comedy, and characters with actual personalities – a nod exploited, inevitably, to further demonstrate the Saints’ sadism – until, finally, he unleashes his revenge in a scheme inspired by Othello and spiked with an excess of lurid, cruel brutality. In all this, the film’s structure is faithful to the revenge horror formula in which atrocities committed against the innocent become license to cheerlead monstrous payback.

If Hensleigh’s manipulative approach to the material isn’t bad enough, the film’s failure is compounded by its function as an origin story. Other than a t-shirt bearing the famous skull that Thomas Jane sports around – ridiculously contrived as a gift from Castle’s son – there’s little of the Punisher persona to be found in the film, to the point where the whole affair could have been delivered under a different moniker and no one would be at a loss. The most notable approximation is Castle’s manifesto delivered via voice over, in which he confidently proclaims that “Revenge is not a valid motive, it's an emotional response. No, not vengeance. Punishment.” Really? The whole film reeks of revenge and the exploitation of suffering…and audience-insulting intellectual dishonesty. As for Thomas Jane, he’s a fine enough actor but never achieves the physical menace and intimidating presence the character demands. Hensleigh’s characterization further hinders Jane, in that his interpretation of Castle is devoid not only of threat, but also the tactical cunning that makes him a fearsome opponent. If Castle survives the vicious assaults on his body, including the wounds suffered in a brawl with a giant Russian (the aforementioned boss-type) so tough he shrugs off a knife stabbed in his shoulder, it is only through sheer willpower…Hensleigh’s will, that is. Certainly Castle himself rarely lives up to his background as a special ops commando, being easily outmatched on a home turf rigged with all manners of defensive and offensive measure to counter attackers.

To be continued...

Note: images used under fair use for illustrative purposes only. If the copyright holder asks for the images to be removed from the 

review: green lantern and ghost rider spirit of vengeance

Whenever filmmakers attempt to take a story crafted in one medium, such as comic books, and tell it in another, the most common mistake is to transpose when they should translate. Of those attempts to lift a story wholesale from the pages of a comic book and film it straight, I can only think of two films, Sin City and Watchmen, that achieved a reasonably successfully transplant to a cinematic form, brimming with the Frankenstein-like proclamation that the final result is alive. Yet despite the earnest fidelity of their respective directors, even these films suffered the rejection that comes, paradoxically, with both an excess and a deficit of the literal. For Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, the excess comes in glacial pacing while the deficit comes from more or less subtle bending the structure of the film’s climax. In the inhumane Sin City, the objection comes from the way violence stylized on the page by necessity of the medium becomes sensationalized and celebratory when filmed for aesthetic effect. The sleaze with which Frank Miller coated his neo-noir stories hardly helped but, rightly or wrongly, hard-hitting sleaze has an unmistakable power to persuade as evidenced by the critical acclaim. (By comparison, Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan's take on Batman are successful examples of translation, as is Jon Favreau's first Iron Man endeavour.)

Green Lantern, based on the long-running DC comic, suffers in large part from a script overstuffed with plotlines condensed to clichés, and thinned-out characters salvaged, barely, by capable actors. As a result, the zero-to-hero formula, done with greater success and exuberance in the shamelessly fun The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, never takes off to giddy altitudes. Surely there should some flicker of exhilaration in the notion of a reckless test pilot inducted into a galactic police force and entrusted with a quasi-magical ring that can realize anything he imagines. Yet despite Martin Campbell’s prior success with the Bond franchise’s arguably best outings, he can’t coax much emotion or suspense out of the script, drowing what action scenes there are with yawning stretches of derivative exposition. The film’s primary villain, a billowing smoke Cthulu named Parallax, is massive not in menace but in special effects. And for the wonder we should experience at the multitude of alien races that make up the Green Lantern Corps, there is only a dulled sense of interest.


What sinks the film, however, is the fundamental hokeyness of the premise, which doesn’t lie in the premise of a galactic police force empowered with incredible alien technology, but in the cartoonish insistence of using emotions as sources of energy. Hence, the Green Lantern’s rings are powered by courage and willpower, while the film teases with a yellow ring powered by fear. A glimpse through Wikipedia reveals that, in the comics, there exist in the DC Universe other lantern corps with rings powered by various emotions. It’s silly and unscientific, highlighting Green Lantern as juvenile wish fulfillment instead of credible space operatics. In failing to either translate or transpose the comic to film, the result is curiously lifeless.

Lifeless, however, would not be an apt description of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. The film explodes with the life of a campy action film, chock-full of over-the-top performances and the unapologetic exploitation of the ghost rider’s magnificent character design, which is that of a fiery skull-headed biker wielding chains that burn evil-doers into puffs of ash. That the film lacks everything that makes a film good – a sensible script, credible drama, and coherent direction – certainly results in a missed opportunity. But every time Cieran Hinds, playing none other than the Devil, uses his marvelously expressive face to offer a sneering frown, or Nicholas Cage tries to outdo himself in his uniquely spastic brand of scenery-chewing, we are reminded about the virtue of a B-movie: the ability to have fun despite the lack of technical acumen. Of course, it’s no surprise to learn that the film’s messy character concept and ludicrous theology has its roots in a comic known for an inability to fit substance to style. Developed on its own, the comic’s imagery presented the epitome of bad-assery but, apparently, never succeed in generating a workable dramatic concept. We can forget, then, both transposition and translation, along with the notion of reinventing the care concept at the cost of fidelity. But we can enjoy a film that celebrates its goofiness and, consequently, delivers a more entertaining experience than dullards like The Green Lantern. 

quick review: The Iron Lady

Watching The Iron Lady is much like walking into a retirement home and finding realized one’s worst fear about growing old. Worse, however, is the condescension that comes from exploiting the dementia of a still-living historical figure to deliver a meet-cute fantasia on coming to terms with bereavement. Here, bluntly, is the point: as much as we can sympathize with Ms. Thatcher for her condition, that’s not what interests us most about her. Suffering from the same species of divided attention that cleaved Madonna’s lesser effort, W.E. , into two limp halves, The Iron Lady sets off Ms. Thatcher in her declining years against a PowerPoint presentation of her greatest moments. Neither the portrait of an influential figure at twilight nor the reenactments of her political/historical accomplishments achieve power. The filmmakers’ unwillingness to take a stance, either supportive or critical, along with an absence of analysis, results in a bland film that is provocative only in its lack of provocation. Insofar as Meryl Streep delivers a strong performance, hardly a revelation given her well-deserved stature, the film leaves her stranded in a vacuum, without the bracing context to boost her portrayal of Thatcher into greatness. The Iron Lady? Call it The Iron Maybe.

Nine Pillars; Few Legs to Stand On: THE FRONT PAGE ONLINE

A review of The Nine Pillars of History: An Anthropological Review of History, Five Religions, Sexuality and Modern Economics, All as a Guide for Peace, by Dr. Gunnar Sevelius.

Dr. Gunnar Sevelius’s effort with his book, The Nine Pillars of History, falls within the tradition of thinkers putting their ideas on paper in the hope of changing world paradigms. An ambitious hope, certainly, but a laudable one in an era increasingly dominated by technology-mediated rhetoric and hyperdata, the hyper-real information-neutralizing glut of data. Much like Buckminster Fuller and others, we need intellectuals willing to engage the broader philosophical and practical underpinnings of our social dysfunctions. Unfortunately, Dr. Sevelius’s ostensibly anthropological effort is diluted by methodological confusion that strands him in circular reasoning.


Read the rest of the review at The Front Page Online.

nixon's choice

Sex In the City star Cynthia Nixon recently gave the hornet’s nest a swift kick in the wasp when she was quoted in a New York Times Sunday Magazine profile:

I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be a choice. And for me, it is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me. A certain section of our community is very concerned that it not be seen as a choice, because if it’s a choice, then we could opt out. I say it doesn’t matter if we flew here or we swam here, it matters that we are here and we are one group and let us stop trying to make a litmus test for who is considered gay and who is not.

When that didn’t go over well, she issued a clarification in the Advocate:

My recent comments in The New York Times were about me and my personal story of being gay. I believe we all have different ways we came to the gay community and we can't and shouldn't be pigeon-holed into one cultural narrative which can be uninclusive and disempowering. However, to the extent that anyone wishes to interpret my words in a strictly legal context I would like to clarify:

While I don't often use the word, the technically precise term for my orientation is bisexual. I believe bisexuality is not a choice, it is a fact. What I have 'chosen' is to be in a gay relationship.

For all the howling protest by an offended LGBT community worried that Nixon’s comments cede ground on the biological inevitability of sexual orientation and, consequently, fuels the anti-LGBT crusade, a crucial ethical consideration is missing. And that consideration is the moral status of homosexual/lesbian sex. 


Attempts to reduce the question to biology to a large extent mask the issue, although the argument is persuasive. If sexual orientation isn’t a matter of choice, then it’s unfair to condemn someone for something that’s not in their control to change. It’s an argument, incidentally, that doesn’t necessarily lead to celebrating expressions of sexual orientation, or other contentious characteristic. After all, we could argue that psychopathy is not a product of choice, yet we would not encourage its expression nor fail to restrain psychopathic individuals. In any case, the science does suggest a biological basis, raising the issue of sexual fluidity (cue Dr. Kinsey), but it all seems rather fuzzy.


Yet the fact that everything about us, including sexual orientation, results from the intersection and overlap of biology and culture doesn’t tell us anything about the morality of homosexual, or heterosexual for that matter,  sex itself.


Consider that if a man gets into a boxing ring with another man, we judge nothing immoral in the fact that they hit, even bloody, each other. Or if a person goes to the physical therapist, there’s nothing immoral in his/her being touched, massaged, and exercised. Why? Because these are consensual activities. Without getting into an academic discussion of ethics, we can keep things simple by recognizing that moral judgments must take into account harm and consent in determining what is moral and immoral. Where there is consent, there usually isn’t harm, and what constitutes harm can in some situations be open to interpretation. In S&M, for example, or combat sports like boxing, pain and minor injuries aren’t typically interpreted as harm, whereas a mugger’s assault with a knife or gun would unquestionably be seen as harmful. Another example is how consent is a key distinction between sex and rape.


On the morality of gay people being attracted to each other, and acting on that attraction through sex and/or a loving relationship, the moral reasoning is this: If there is consent, and no violence is involved, then there is no basis for making an argument that homosexuality is harmful and, by extension, immoral. So if there’s nothing wrong with being gay, what does it matter if it’s by choice or biology?