First We Consolidate, Then We Obliterate

Because a coworker asked me to try and keep a body count, I watched the 1989 Punisher movie. I have strange coworkers.

The movie was in the box of stuff my dad loaned me a month ago, part of a discount action movies disc. You know, eight crappy films on two DVDs for some really low price? I'm not at all sure why he would buy it, or why he would think I'd want to watch any of it, but I've come to realize I can't always follow his tastes.

For the record, the body count, by my best estimate, is 98 confirmed on-screen deaths. Not bad, I guess. It doesn't count the 125 or more kills he racked up the previous five years, since we didn't see those. I did count the flashback of his family dying, since we got to see that. I didn't count Detective Sam Leary (Nancy Everhard), since the last we saw of her, she was only getting pistol-whipped as the mob rescued Frank. I can't confirm her death, because she drops out of the film entirely after that.

In some ways, it wasn't as bad as I expected. Then again, some of the particulars of a Punisher film are pretty simple. Give him a family killed by the mob. Make him frighteningly determined to kill criminals, but protective of children. Give him a reliable source of information. Using a down on his luck drunk of an actor was a curious choice, but he adds some color.

It's also a very '80s action movie, which isn't necessarily great for the idea of Frank Castle I have in my head now (pretty much Ennis' version). The one-liners felt out of place, the use of a motorcycle stuck me as impractical (it attracts too much attention, and severely limits how much firepower you can carry). I found it curious the big white skull on his shirt was too far, but using a remote control truck with a bottle of hooch to get Shake's attention was OK. I don't really care for either of the cops, Leary or Berkowitz (Lou Gossett Jr.), but I guess they needed some way to get the backstory and emotional depth into the movie. One that didn't rely on Dolph Lundgren, I mean. Some of the faces he makes cracked me up. Especially the one as he surrenders to the cops. Oh well, I wasn't expecting much from him, and that's what I got.

I was impressed by the conclusion of Castle and Gianni Franco's (wasn't expecting to see the evil doctor from The Fugitive in this movie) partnership. Frank agrees to help Franco recover his child from the Yakuza, but promises to kill Franco as soon as that's accomplished. Except you presume the boy will be there at the time, so how were they going to work around that? I figured there was no way they'd have Frank kill the guy in front of his son. I expected them to weasel out of it. Send Tommy away, have Lt. Berkowitz show up and kill Franco because he got the drop on Frank, have Franco accidentally kill himself while trying to get Frank.

But no, Frank actually did kill Franco in front of Tommy, albeit after Franco made a very game attempt to kill Frank, and after Tommy came to Frank's aid. I honestly couldn't decide what to make of Frank giving Tommy the chance to kill him as revenge. Frank's reasoning - that if Tommy gets it out of the way now, he won't grow up to be his father - was a little dodgy. We have no indication Franco acted as he did out of some childhood revenge anger. It's more likely Frank's deathwish coming through than anything, but I have a hard time seeing him encouraging a child to kill someone, even under those circumstances.

Of course, right after that, he tells Tommy he's a good boy, and had better stay that way, because Frank will be watching. Which makes Frank out to be Robot Santa from Futurama, essentially.