For those who’ve never seen it or simply need a refresher course on the story, here goes: On Frank Castle’s last day as an undercover FBI agent, Bobby Saint, the son of crime boss Howard Saint (John Travolta), is killed during a sting operation. While Castle moves on with his life into retirement, traveling to Puerto Rico with his wife and child for a family reunion, Saint’s men figure out Castle’s real identity, only to follow orders to track him down and kill him and his entire family as vengeance for Bobby’s death, an act which they pull off with ruthless efficiency. Of course, Castle – despite being presumed dead – survives what’s done to him and eventually returns to Tampa, Florida to dish out his own personal justice against Saint.
As a character, the Punisher has always been associated with extreme violence. Nothing is too brutal for him, and that’s a trait 2008’s War Zone really hammered home (to its detriment). Here, though, despite having good reason and ability to go in and wipe everyone out in a matter of minutes, the character elects to play a deeper game against Saint.
Unlike the Spider-Men and Fantastic Four of the world, Castle isn’t out to save the day. There’s no plot he has to stop Saint from enacting filled with giant robots and bombs. For Castle, this is personal, and the story reflects that; for his own loss, so, too, will Saint lose everything, and it takes more than pure violence to make that happen.
That’s not to say that Castle himself isn’t appropriately violent. The film is loaded with memorable deaths, from Castle burying a paper cutter blade in someone’s skull to his creative use of a switchblade at a gunfight, but what elevates The Punisher above merely being a series of creative snuff vignettes is Castle’s methodical tearing down of Saint and his business. Directly and indirectly, he turns Saint’s allies into enemies. He bides his time and studies everyone’s day-to-day activities for information he can use as a weapon. He plays on Saint’s personal insecurities by creating a scenario in which Saint himself kills those closest to him. In essence, Castle takes everything from Saint in order to isolate him, to feel even a modicum of what Castle himself feels, and in doing so makes the ultimate punishment of Saint all the more satisfying.
Whether it’s back in 2004 or up through 2016, it’s rare that a comic book movie doesn’t rely on huge stakes to push its narrative. There’s always been an odd misconception that without a city or world in peril by the third act, audiences apparently can’t root for their heroes, and while sometimes that still works, there’s something to be said about those precious few comic book films that elect to eschew this.
With The Punisher, there really aren’t any major stakes; Castle’s family is already lost, and all that’s left is whether or not he can make Saint pay for what’s been done. As a result, the film replaces the idea of what can be lost with what can be gained: A sense of catharsis for Castle, which – despite the film’s revenge fantasy trappings – is something a lot more relatable on a real world level than, say, everything we know coming to an end as the result of a conscious, hungry cloud from space.