I LIKE 2 OUT OF 3 PUNISHER MOVIES (part 1 of 2)

I'm not a comic book guy. My only real exposure to the character of The Punisher in the world of comics came from my cousin who would show me the occasional panel of bloody brutality from one of the issues he was reading. He also showed me a great story that had The Punisher, Wolverine, and Ghost Rider fighting the devil. I knew these guys from cartoons and toys, but not from the source, not from the comic books. In other words, I knew who they were, but some guy at New England comics would most likely ridicule my preteen, non-canonical assessments of the characters. To me Ghost Rider was a rad biker skeleton who was always on fire, Wolverine was the most popular and coolest super hero at the time because he had knives on his hands, and The Punisher was the vigilante whose comics were deemed "mature" and had to be hidden from my cousin's parents. That was the extent of my comic book knowledge.

My only other knowledge of The Punisher came one Friday night at 8pm. I was probably ten or eleven years old and I remember repeatedly asking my mom what time it was while we were picking up Chinese food from Ocean Kai. I really wanted to be home before 8 o'clock because I saw a commercial for The Punisher movie the day before. Those were the days before fancy pants cable, DVRs, or even programmable VCRs as far as my family was concerned. Anyway, my mom had previously balked at renting the R rated movie for me because on the back of the box someone had a gun crammed in his mouth. This is the lady who let me watch Jaws everyday as a kid. No amount of televised gunplay will ever change the fact that I will forever be far more afraid of sharks than guns. But now The Punisher was going to be on regular TV. And if TV said it was ok for me to watch then she no longer had any recourse!



Needless to say the movie delivers everything a little action hungry kid would want: gun fights, Ivan Drago, an abandoned amusement park hideout, ninjas, Louis Gossett Jr . . . it had it all! I remember that my main complaint as a kid was that he didn't wear his skull shirt and that he lived in the sewer and never came across the Ninja Turtles. I pined for that crossover movie for the ensuing weeks after seeing this.

Many people crap on this movie, but it is borderline perfect for what it is. It's just that the sentiment of that previous sentence hinges entirely on what one is expecting this movie to be. I'm sure comic book purists have their gripes with it, but as I said before, I know next to nothing about the comics so I can't really make those arguments. But folks who grabbed a video cassette with Dolph Lundgren strapped to the gills with firearms in front of a motorcycle from a video store shelf in 1989 probably weren't disappointed. They knew what they were getting into.

I honestly feel that this movie can stand toe to toe and possibly head and shoulders above most direct to video action titles of the late 80s. That surge of low budget action that came from the eighties into the early nineties had so much going for it: video stores were abundant and had shelf space, there was no internet to speak of so there was the thrill of the hunt to find a good movie to rent, and bullets, body counts, ninjas and samurai swords were all in vogue. There is a certain feel to this kind of movie that I have trouble classifying. I always wonder how these types of movies play to different age groups and how much of my fondness is rooted in childhood nostalgia. There will always be something about wet asphalt and rusty garbage cans under the street lights at night that makes me want to see denim-clad thugs meet their well deserved demise at the hands of some vigilante or renegade cop.



Ok, you might say, at present we have three different versions of The Punisher in movies. What makes the two you like so special, Tommy? And what's wrong with the one you didn't like, you picky asshole? In the end it's all going to be a matter of personal tastes. People like what they like. In the 1989 Punisher, I like the previously mentioned 80s-action atmosphere, I like the cheesy multi-colored shattering glass opening credits, I like the frayed friendship with Louis Gossett Jr, and I like that they didn't try to make you feel too bad for The Punisher. In this movie The Punisher spends his spare time in the sewer sitting naked while debating with God about justice. He's clearly off his rocker. I think that is something a character like this needs. Someone who murders hundreds of people, for whatever reason, should usually be portrayed as crazy.

The Punisher has been waging war on organized crime for a few years and getting his personal bodycount into the triple digits while his old friend, from his old life, Louis Gossett Jr is tracking him down. Gossett plays Jake, Frank's old partner. All he wants is to help his friend, to somehow pull him from the murky depths of vengeful insanity. Unfortunately for him, vengeful insanity is the deepest and murkiest of all insanities!

The Punisher isn't completely without morals though. When the Yakuza decide to kidnap all of the mafia bosses' kids, it's up to The Punisher to get them back! No more innocents are going to get hurt on his watch! And to prove he's still crazy, The Punisher has to be slightly coaxed into this quest by a bum who rhymes everything he says. I don't know if this Shakespearean wino is a character from the comics or not, but he kind of sticks out like sore thumb in this movie. And I wouldn't have it any other way. He trades criminal underworld secrets to disturbed vigilantes for RC cars carrying payloads of brown-bagged hooch. Trust me, that sentence makes sense.



This movie delivers in the action department. Bullet shells fly, things blow up, bad guys drop dead left and right. There are cool locations for this carnage to take place like the empty fun house and the Japanese style Yakuza lair. But what ties it all together is Dolph Lundgren. He's pale and greasy and mumbly and you can believe he's been in the sewers for years talking to himself and only coming out when it's time to murder bad dudes. And I'm not sure if it was intentional, but the combination of Dolph's sickly pale face, sunken sleepless eyes, and black greasepaint facial stubble occasionally creates the iconic Punisher skull that was missing from his shirt. I think they knew what they were doing.

Not that these kinds of movies need or strive to be emotional roller coasters, but I want to give "mad props", as the kids say, to Louis Gossett Jr. I know there are deleted scenes on youtube and elsewhere that you can watch to see the background story develop between Frank and Jake. But those are deleted scenes and therefore not in the movie. So Gossett only has limited screen time to get his character across and he does a really good job. For every hour Frank Castle has spent fighting his one man war, Jake has been searching for him so he could save him, help him, and redeem him. When the Punisher is finally apprehended, the two men meet again in a jail cell. Jake tries pouring his heart out and all he gets is a stone faced stare and smart ass answers. So he flips his shit. Louis Gossett Jr does a stellar job in this scene. You can see it here at about three and a half minutes into this clip. And check out how Dolph Lundgren doesn't even flich when Gossett jumps out of his chair and grabs his shirt. He's a pro.




Excellent Stunt at 0:29
Excellent Scene at 3:15

This clip also features my favorite stunt from the movie. The Punisher crashes a bus into a van. Standard action movie shenanigans. But there just so happened to be a guy on the hood of that van firing his machine gun into that bus full of kids. He goes flying into the bus through the windshield. It's awesome. Then he gets right up and attacks again, only to be launched off the bus like that mugger in the "pinkie toe" story Kramer told on an episode of Seinfeld.

That about wraps it up for the 1989 Dolph Lundgren version of The Punisher. If you like low budget 80s action, it's right up your alley. I want to give honorable mention ribbons to Kim Miyori who played a very good villain as Lady Tanaka and to Jeroen Krabbe for rocking that denim jacket during the final shootout and for pronouncing "Thomas" phonetically.



Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of "I LIKE 2 OUT OF 3 PUNISHER MOVIES!"