April 16, 2004 | In the pantheon of
Marvel Comics heroes, The Punisher ranks several rungs below such luminaries
as The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk and The Amazing Spider-Man.
He's not really a super hero – he's
armed with nothing more potent than big guns and bad attitude – and you
could argue that his vigilante credo actually qualifies him as an anti- hero.
Still, he can claim a distinction that no other Marvel heavyweight can
match: So far, he has inspired not just one but two junky movies.
To be sure, the latest film rendering of The Punisher is marginally
better than the slapdash 1989 edition featuring Dolph Lundgren in the
title role and Jeroen Krabbe as his crimelord antagonist. As a straight-up
action-adventure, however, the new version -- with Thomas Jane ( Deep
Blue Sea ) as the vengeful lead and John Travolta as a deadly serious
(and deathly dull) bad guy -- fires blanks. Thoroughly routine in every
respect, it plays like a paint-by-numbers pilot for a cable-TV series
that you'd never want to watch.
Jane stars as Frank Castle, a Florida-based FBI agent whose final assignment
before early retirement involves the scuttling of a gun-running enterprise.
Unfortunately, the mission ends with the inadvertent killing of a would-be
arms dealer who just happens to be a son of Howard Saint (Travolta),
a seemingly respectable Tampa businessman who keeps vicious killers on
his payroll while he launders millions for South American drug kingpins.
Saint makes his displeasure known by ordering
his goons to invade Castle's family reunion celebration in Puerto Rico.
During the resulting slaughter, the FBI agent loses his beloved wife
(Samantha Mathis) and young son (Marcus Johns). But Castle himself
survives, albeit just barely, and returns to Florida to dispense rough
justice as – ta-dah! – The Punisher.
Jane displays appropriate physicality and brooding gravitas, and looks
way-cool in The Punisher's trademark, skull-adorned T-shirt. Overall,
however, he's hampered by director Jonathan Hensleigh' s oddly and off-puttingly
colorless conception of the obsessed avenger as a generic action hero.
And Travolta? Well, it's always a bad sign when an actor must thoughtfully
smoke a pipe from time to time to give his character at least one distinguishing
trait. But Travolta doesn't help matters by conveying all the enthusiasm
of someone who's fulfilling a commitment after losing a bet.