The double commentary reminds us of the systemic inequality that both stereotypes men of color as murderous thugs and recruits those same men as cannon fodder for state-sponsored violence. However, the film’s most sardonic and cutting moment of parody comes when Jigsaw recruits black, Latin, Asian, and Irish gang members with a Patton-style inspirational speech, standing in front of an American flag. Alexander even links Punisher to the Church in the final scene, cheekily suggesting the iconic lineage to patriarchal power to forgive or to “punish.” The extreme violence emphasizes the horrific politics of every superhero film: the very genre idealizes populist (literal) strongmen whose extralegal violence is justified by their purported benevolence. In this story, Castle/Punisher goes after the Italian, Russian and Asian mobs in an effort to clean the streets. Even in his nominal attempts to rescue the widow and daughter of an undercover cop (whom Punisher accidentally killed), Punisher is explosive and brutish. Whats the Story Based on a popular comic book character first introduced in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man in 1974, PUNISHER: WAR ZONE revolves around ex-Marine/Special Forces instructor Frank Castle ( Ray Stevenson ). In contrast to the kinetic action, Stevenson’s Punisher is taciturn to the point of camp. These action sequences are technically masterful in and of themselves, but also undercut through their exaggeration self-aggrandizing super-man action archetypes. The cinematography, a palette of neon greens and reds swathed in shadow, recalls another unstable loner, Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) of Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1976). The absurdity only increases in the best-known sequence, Punisher shoots a parkouring smuggler out of mid-air with a rocket launcher. The film opens with Punisher attacking a Godfather-style meeting and beheading an elderly mob boss - then snapping his wife’s neck. The film’s ludicrous violence underscores the absurdity of superhero vigilantism. The nominal plot follows the Punisher (Ray Stevenson) vengefully butchering every mobster in town, before finally battling crime lord Jigsaw (Dominic West) and his gang. War Zone pushes the grim, ultraconservative vigilante character into cartoonish territory. I saw it with a friend in a nearly empty theater, and afterward we stumbled out in the late December cold with giddy grins and rubbery legs, stunned and amazed. When first released, it was neither heavily promoted nor widely seen. Punisher: War Zone has garnered an energetic cult fandom in the decade since it was made, and it’s a rare example of a popcorn movie that calls out its own tropes.
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