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The Punisher (2004 film): Encyclopedia BETAFree Encyclopedia |
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PlotFormer Delta Force soldier and Special Undercover Agent Frank Castle had it all: a loving family, a great life, and an upcoming desk job. On his final assignment, Castle plays his undercover role perfectly, but the operation spins out of control and a young man, Bobby Saint, is inadvertently killed. Inflamed by the death of their son, the Saints are willing to risk their newfound legitimacy on a wholesale mission of vengeance. Castle's worst nightmare is about to come true, as Howard Saint's lieutenants unleash hell at the Castle family reunion. But Castle, to his everlasting torment, survives. Until this moment, he has spent his entire life adhering strictly to the law. However, experience has taught him that the law cannot adequately penalize the people who murdered his entire family. Drawing upon all he has learned in 20 years, Castle sets in motion a diabolical plan to punish all of those responsible.ReactionOn its release on April 16, 2004, it was mostly panned by critics. Some stated that it was brutal, dull, and full of clichés. However, many have defended the movie stating that compared to most comic book based movies, it is a well done throwback to the old school action movies of the 60s and 70s.Its video and DVD sales were also enough to warrant a sequel, which will be due out in 2007. Pre-ProductionDuring pre-production, director Jonathan Hensleigh and cinematography Conrad W. Hall looked at dozens of action movies, crime sagas and westerns made between 1960 and 1978, including the Dirty Harry series, The Getaway, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Godfather, and Bonnie and Clyde. Those movies helped establish the cinematic vocabulary Hensleigh and Hall developed for The Punisher. "We wanted to situate The Punisher as a larger-than-life character," explains Hall. "Without copying these films, they gave us a common ground from which to communicate."Hensleigh and the film's producers put together a crew of key collaborators who thoroughly understood that aesthetic, beginning with director of photography Conrad W. Hall. The film marks the second feature credit for Hall, who had previously shot Panic Room for David Fincher. "Jonathan wanted to do a film in a more classic visual style, with an unobtrusive camera and dramatic lighting that would enhance the tension of a scene. That was exciting to me, because it's easy to fall into the trap of trying to outdo whatever the fashion of the moment is," comments Hall. Hall acquired an appreciation of the storyteller's art from his father, the late, much-admired cinematographer Conrad L. Hall. "My father was a great filmmaker, and he was really about pointing the camera at the story." In style, tone and technique, The Punisher evokes the taut, vigorous action storytelling that thrived in the 60s and 70s, says Jonathan Hensleigh, "I greatly admire the tradition of action filmmaking laid down by Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Sam Peckinpah and, in particular, Don Siegel. I love the spareness of those films. I love the classic camerawork, and the fact that it's based solely on storytelling." Hensleigh and Hall chose to keep the cinematography of The Punisher as naturalistic as possible, which suited both the muscularity of the story and the realistic style of the comic. They largely avoided pre-determined color palettes; occasionally Hall introduced blue tones to underscore emotional themes. "Jonathan really felt that we should deal with color as the locations and nature dictated," Hall explains. "Ultimately, we fell upon a style that we felt was original for The Punisher. The idea behind this picture was that it ought to be bleak -this is a dark story - but beautiful." The film's flinty realism is enhanced by a strong undercurrent of dark humor. Frank Castle may be a man of few words, but he does have a way with a wry quip. "The story at its heart is a very emotional tale of incredible loss," Jane reflects. "The challenge was to keep the tone relatively close to the bone, and yet find the humor in the situations. It was important that we mixed a sense of fun in with the horror. The movie is intended to entertain people. We all need to be able to laugh. We need that emotional release." From the outset, Hensleigh was determined that the film's action sequences would be the province of actors and stunt people. Every chase, fight and shootout had to exist within the boundaries of human possibility. "I like practical gags, gags that can be pulled off by stunt people without CGI enhancement," he says. "I spent a great deal of time going back over my old notes about all the things I've wanted to do. I didn't want to write some massive stunt that would run contrary to the laws of physics." Before filming began, Hensleigh was not given the budget he wanted or needed. Hensleigh knew that most action pictures get a budget of around 64 million. He was only given a 33 million dollar budget for the movie. He was also only given 50 days to shoot the movie, which is half the number of days it takes to shoot most action pictures. Most of Hensleigh's original script had to be edited and re-written due to budget costs. According to the DVD commentary, a subplot that involved Frank discovering a friend had sold him out to the Saint family to absolve a gambling debt was lost as a result of these budget cuts and rewrites. Many have agreed that Thomas Jane did well as Frank Castle (a.k.a. The Punisher). Despite mixed reviews from fans of the comic, the movie did very well on DVD and video, doing well enough to warrant The Punisher 2, a sequel due to release in 2007. A Director's cut has been announced and talked about but no release date has been set. Trivia* Actor Thomas Jane, director Jonathan Hensleigh and Avi Arad have said in many interviews that Jane was the first actor to be asked to play the title role. Jane initially turned down the role twice, as well as a part in the first X-Men movie and a few other comic book movies, the reason for that was because he did not see himself as a superhero actor. Jane said that when they asked him the second time to play the Punisher that what really got him interested in playing the part was when Arad sent Tim Bradstreet's artwork of the Punisher. After finding out what kind of character the Punisher was, he accepted. In addition to reading as many Punisher comics he could find to understand the character, Jane became a fan of the Punisher. Jane trained for 6 or 7 months with Navy Seals and gained more than twenty pounds of muscle for the part.* In the movie, Castle's neighbors learn that he worked for CTU. This is the same name as the fictional branch of the U.S. Government that Jack Bauer works for on the TV series 24. Maybe as a homage, in the 4th season of 24 an agent named Castle had a minor but present role. But this hasn't been confirmed, and if it is homage to the Punisher movie it can only be just homage to someone named Castle. Since Frank would already be the Punisher at that time. * The novel of the movie which has Jonathan Hensleigh's original script and screenplay and a mini comic book by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon that came with the DVD (the first and only DVD mini prequel comic book) has it that Frank Castle fought in Iraq in the Gulf War and in Bosnia in the Bosnian War and was a member of the Delta Force, CTU and the FBI. The novel also has it that the setting of the Vietnam War, that is a big and important part of the Punisher's past in the comic book, had to be replaced by having him as an undercover agent in the FBI. He spends months deep undercover surrounded by people who would simply blow his head off if he slipped up. The writer says that getting into character as these people were starting to taint Frank (this is also seen in the mini comic book) that he seemed to enjoy it too much when it came to killing the bad guys. Living on the wrong side of the law for a time, even if it wasn't for the job, is something else that explains his assuming the mantle of the Punisher. * According to the commentary, during the movie when Castle was fighting the Russian, Jane actually did his own stunt by throwing himself through a wall, also according to the commentary when Castle was having his wound stitched up, the fake patch was actually sewn to his skin, however Jane refused to break character during the entire ordeal. * The Punisher DVD was released on September 7, 2004 and sold nearly 1.8 million copies in its first five days and netted 10.8 million in rentals its first week out, making it number one in DVD sales. During October, The Punisher DVD rentals were still in the top ten and various cable and satellite providers had started to offer The Punisher as a pay-per-view feature. Between worldwide movie box office and DVD sales, it grossed $115 million ($55 m worldwide + $60 m from DVD sales). * A Punisher BluRay DVD was released on June 27, 2006. * Roy Scheider (Frank Castle, Sr.) and Tom Nowicki (Lincoln) both were in the 1990 movie Somebody Has to Shoot the Picture, where Scheider played a photographer named Paul Marish and Nowicki played district attorney Steve March. * Mark Collie, country singer, appeared as Harry 'Heck' Thornton, an assassin who plays Castle a song, "In Time", which was written by Collie. According to the DVD Commentary he was not intended to be a reference to Robert Rodriguez' "El Mariachi" character. * The character of Microchip was not included in the script because of director Jonathan Hensleigh's distaste for him. Hensleigh said: "There are a couple of years where I didn't want to go; Microchip, the battle van, all that stuff where it got really high-tech; we're not going there at all. I deemed that too complicated, too lacking of the spirit of the sort of urban vigilante. The Punisher doesn't just go around blowing people away using such things that Batman or James Bond would have or would even be envy of; he uses guile and cunning just as much as he does weaponry and physical combat." Much of the fanbase and comic book writer Garth Ennis also has distaste for the character. * An overwhelming amount of fans and even non-fans alike have said that they favor the 2004 Punisher movie over the 1989 counterpart. Many have said that it was far more faithful to the 30 year run of the Punisher comic book series and that it was far better written, directed and acted. * On the cover of the DVD (pictured at the top of the page) Castle is holding an M-16A2 with an M-203 40mm Grenade Launcher. However, in the movie, he doesn't use an M-16A2 - he uses an M-4 carbine with an M-203A (shorter version designed for the M4 Carbine) 40mm grenade launcher. The M4 Carbine is a more compact version of the M16 rifle. The M4 Carbine has a 14.5" barrel, a semi-auto/full-auto trigger group, and a collapsible stock. The M16 rifle, in it's latest form, has a 20" barrel, a semi-auto/3-shot burst trigger group, and a fixed stock. Cast
Arsenal of The PunisherHere is a list of some of the weapons used by the Punisher in the film.* M4 Carbine with a M203A Grenade Launcher * M1911 Compensated .45 Handgun * Sawed-off shotgun, side-by-side * Compound bow. * Knife with a launch-able blade. * Butterfly knife. * An exotic-folding knife called a Kerambit. * Several anti-tank and anti-personal land mines. * M67 Grenade and M18A1 Claymore Antipersonnel Mine's * Had a double-action revolver in a concealled compartment in his apartment, but before he could fire it The Russian bent the barrel. * The blade from a paper cutter. VehiclesThe Punisher (Frank Castle) drives a 1969 Pontiac GTO. After crashing it, in a fight scene with Harry Heck, he kills Harry and takes his car, a 1970 Plymouth Road RunnerQuotes"I leave this as a declaration of intent, so no one will be confused.1. "Sic vis pacem, para bellum." Latin. The boot camp sergeant made us recite it like a prayer. "Sic vis pacem, para bellum." "If you want peace, prepare for war." 2. Frank Castle is dead. He died with his family. 3. In certain extreme situations, the law is inadequate. In order to shame its inadequacy it is neccesary to act outside the law to pursue natural justice. This is not vengeance. Revenge is not a valid motive, it's an emotional response. No....not vengeance....Punishment." External links* Thomas Jane Yahoo Group
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