THE PUNISHER (2004 FILM)

'''The Punisher''' is a 2004 movie, based on the Marvel Comics character, starring Thomas Jane as Frank Castle and John Travolta as Howard Saint, the gangster who orders the death of Castle's entire family.

Contents

Plot

Cast

Production

Novelization

DVD sales

Extended cut

Soundtrack

Reaction

Awards and nominations (2005)

Trivia

External links

Plot

Former Delta Force operative and FBI 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. Unfortunately, Bobby is soon revealed to actually be one of the two sons of Howard Saint, a ruthless mob boss. 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 perform a massacre at the Castle family reunion, among the victims include Frank's wife, his son and his parents. But Castle, to his everlasting torment, is the lone survivor (in a fake newspaper made and seen in the movie it is said that over 34 people of both Frank’s and his wife’s family were killed). Until this moment, he has spent his entire life adhering strictly to the law. However, experience has taught him that the law cannot and will not adequately penalize the people who murdered his entire family (The Saints have the authorities in their pocket). Drawing upon all he has learned in 20 years, Castle sets in motion a diabolical plan to punish all of those responsible. The film ends with an explosive finale as all of Saint's men (including Harry "Heck" Thornton and The Russian) are eliminated, when Howard Saint, having been manipulated into killing both his wife and his best friend, is dragged by a car into a bomb-laden parking lot. His revenge is taken, but now Castle will continue his vigilante mission against others who deserve punishment.

Cast

Actor	Role
Thomas Jane	Frank Castle / The Punisher
John Travolta	Howard Saint
Will Patton	Quentin Glass
Rebecca Romijn	Joan
Ben Foster	Dave
John Pinette	Bumpo
Samantha Mathis	Maria Elizabeth Castle
Marcus Johns	Will Castle
A. Russell Andrews	Jimmy Weeks
James Carpinello	Bobby Saint John Saint
Laura Harring	Livia Saint
Eddie Jemison	Micky Duka
Kevin Nash	The Russian
Mark Collie	Harry "Heck" Thornton
Roy Scheider	Frank Castle, Sr.
Tom Nowicki	Lincoln

Before actor Thomas Jane became the Punisher, director Jonathan Hensleigh and Avi Arad have said in many interviews that Jane was the first and only 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.

Production

Before filming began, Hensleigh was not given the budget he wanted or needed from the studio. Hensleigh knew that most action pictures get a budget of around $64 million. He was only given a $15 million dollar budget for the movie.[1] 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 many times due to budget costs. According to the DVD commentary, the first scene in the movie would have been a battle set in (though not filmed in) Kuwait during the Gulf War and 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.
The Punisher was filmed on location in Tampa, Florida. During pre-production, director Jonathan Hensleigh and cinematographer 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." In an interview, Hensleigh also stated the film pays homage to Mad Max.
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 is 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 did not want to write some massive stunt that would run contrary to the laws of physics."
Before the film was released in theaters Jonathan Hensleigh was asked if the movie had been entirely based on the ''The Punisher: Year One'' storyline. Jonathan Hensleigh stated, "The Punisher: Year One was a four-issue set that came out in 1994-1995. It has this really cool cover art and I highly recommend it. I took just pieces of the plot. If the entire movie was just based on Year One then the plotline would have been way, way too involved and it would have been "Gone With the Wind" - a four-hour movie with only the very ending having any action in the whole movie at all."
During shooting of the film Lions Gate had purchased Artisan. In an interview with Jonathan Hensleigh, Hensleigh said that even though the movie is under Lions Gate, they had nothing to do with the film. Lions Gate never gave a green light for the film to be made. The film was still under Artisan Entertainment.
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 did not 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 does not just go around blowing people away using such things that Batman or James Bond would have or would even be in 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.

Novelization

The novelization 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 and only 10,000 produced) has it that Frank Castle fought in Iraq in the Gulf War (Frank was awarded the Bronze Star after the war), 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, which is a big and important part of the Punisher’s past in the comic book, had to be replaced by having him in the Gulf War and 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.

DVD sales

''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. It then sold $18.7 million. Sales continued at a steady pace, ultimately topping 4 million units. 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).

Extended cut

A Punisher Extended Cut DVD was released on November 21, 2006 with 17 minutes of additional footage. Features also include for the first time ever in a DVD a black and white stop motion animated scene, set in Kuwait based on and done by artist Tim Bradstreet, and a Punisher comic book gallery. An extended version of "In Time" by Mark Collie also appears in the credits of the extended DVD cut.
A Punisher Blu-ray Disc was also released on June 27, 2006.

Soundtrack

Reaction

On its release on April 16, 2004, it was met with mixed reviews [2]. 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. Despite mixed reviews from fans of the comic, the movie did very well on DVD and video.

Awards and nominations (2005)

'Won'

★ 'Prism Awards'

★
★ Mark Chadwick was awarded a for Best Fire Stunt.
'Nominated'

★ 'World Stunt Awards' '(Taurus Award)'

★
★ Best Overall Stunt by a Stunt Woman.

★
★ Best Stunt Coordinator and/or 2nd Unit Director.

★
★ Best Work with a Vehicle.

Trivia

★ The story and the plot were mainly based on two Punisher comic book stories; “Punisher: Year One”, “Welcome Back, Frank” and scenes from other Punisher comic book stories were used as well such as "Marvel Preview: Featuring the Punisher #2", "Punisher: War Zone" and "Punisher: War Journal".

★ In the movie, Castle's neighbors learn that he worked for CTU. A fictional branch of the U.S. Government but not related to the Jack Bauer character that works for CTU on the TV series ''24''.

★ Kevin Nash, who plays The Russian, was accidentally stabbed with a knife during the filming of a fight scene with Thomas Jane. [3]

★ 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.

★ 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.

★ It was reported in 2005 that along with other movies that the 2004 Punisher DVD commentary by Jonathan Hensleigh and “Making Of The Movie” are used in some film classes to help beginning film directors get started since the film was a low budget movie.

External links

★ The Punisher on Marvel.com

★ Official website

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★ Trailer