The Punisher
He's lean, he's mean, he says about two words in the whole flick.

God bless Dolph Lundgren. For years, this noble Swede has toiled in the footsteps of a prominent Austrian who not only got all the good roles, but also endeared himself to the public and became an American icon in the process. While Ah-nuld was off storming the box office in Commando, Dolph was getting pounded into the canvas by Sly Stallone in Rocky IV. While the Austrian strongman suffered the violent effects of Total Recall, the Dolphster battled Aryan aliens who could only utter the phrase I Come In Peace ad nauseum (is it me, or does it seem that the aliens only say this in order for Dolph to quip "And you go in pieces" during the climactic moment?) While the husband to Mrs. Shriver was involved in a showdown against a liquid metal demon in Terminator , this one-time Fulbright Scholar to M.I.T. was having a showdown of his own -- a Showdown in Little Tokyo (yeah, I know it looks like he's wearing a kimono at the end of the movie -- ya wanna make something of it?).

Indeed, Dolph Lundgren has endured his fair share of tragedy.

So it's only fitting that he was chosen to assay the role of Marvel Comics' tragic hero, The Punisher, when it came time to turn the comic into a film. Sure, the fact that Dolph was blond, while the Punisher himself is has dark brown hair, was a minor stumbling block, but toss in some dye, some cream rinse, and voila, instant transformation. And while he stands around looking stoic, Dolph really does look like the embittered Frank Castle. Of course, he has to go and ruin it by opening his mouth, but I digress.

For the record, The Punisher follows the story of Frank Castle, an ex-police officer who decalares a personal war on the mob when his family is murdered by a local mafioso. This is made easy by the fact that he's presumed dead as well, due to a conveniently engineered explosion that is only skeletally explained. Now, in the world of the comics Castle is a hardened Vietnam vet with tons of underground connections that allow him all the mobility and ammunition his little heart can desire. He wears black spandex with a stylized skull emblazoned across his chest, and he packs more firepower than many small countries. But the film version, shot in Australia by the way, isn't possessed of a terribly large budget, so things are scaled down a bit. Frank Castle on film is just a haunted guy who, ever the fashion plate, wears a lot of black. Instead of roaming around with a mobile arsenal, Frank hangs out in the sewers, occasionally riding his motorcycle (no telling where he got that) and gazing longingly at pictures of his dead wife and child. His guns and ammo appear, literally, from nowhere, and his only friend is a wizened old homeless guy called Shake, who speaks in rhyming couplets and quotes Hamlet every chance he gets. Wait a minute here... Shake-speare. Ooooh, this sort of thought in a Dolph Lundgren movie is making me all dizzy.

All right, I'm better now. Onward!

As it turns out, the mafioso responsible for offing Castle's kin, one Gianni Franco (Jeroen Krabbe), has recently returned to the States, and has quickly become embroiled in a turf war with the Yakuza -- the Japanese crime syndicate that's badder than bad and employs fully skilled ninja warriors as its lieutenants. What? You didn't know that the Yakuza employed those pesky ninjas? You obviously haven't been reading your Marvel comics of late, since ninjas have been en vogue since the mid-eighties. Anyhow, the dastardly female mastermind of the Yakuza eventually kidnaps the children of the heads of all the various crime families in the city, and circumstance, of course, leads to Frank Castle himself rescuing the children of enemies who are responsible for the death of his own wife and child. And hey, there's also Frank's ex-partner, played by Louis Gossett, Jr. (who was apparently slumming from Iron Eagle 5), who believes that Frank is still alive and kicking. What is a wayward Dolph to do?

Marvel has rarely had luck in its film and television adaptations, and The Punisher was no exception in its time. Shelved for over a year after its filming, it was eventually released direct to video in 1990, but it's really one of the better attempts of the bunch. Despite its inconsistencies with the comic, the film is lean and mean, providing some startlingly suspenseful action sequences and decent characterization to boot. There's a tremendous sequence at the beginning in which a mafia don laughs off threats from the Punisher only to quake in fear as his entire entourage is systematically wiped out by the vigilante. It's brutal and scary, and it provides a nice intro to the character's ethics (or lack therof). Similarly, there's a nighttime scene at a local dock in which the Yakuza put in a chilling appearance. Sure, the film falls into an inevitable pattern: see Dolph, see Dolph fight off hordes of baddies before he gets captured, see Dolph stripped and tortured, see Dolph escape torture and kill baddies. It shouldn't work -- by all rights, it should crash and burn. Surprisingly, however, it's Lundgren who keeps the whole thing afloat. His virtual nonacting is exactly what we need in Frank Castle, a character who is virtually dead inside. Dolph's monotone captures this as perfectly as Keanu Reeves captured the bumbling Neo in The Matrix (hey, that was shot in Australia too -- makes ya wonder.) And that's why I have to list The Punisher as a prime guilty pleasure. I mean, how often is it that someone's lack of talent actually works to their advantage?

DROOL FACTOR: Dolph drools a bit when he's being tortured -- stretched on a pneumatic rack, no less. Oh, the humanity!

GROSS OUT FACTOR: Lots of blood and nasty bits. The Punisher really punishes the guilty... with guns, knives, blenders, etc.

STRONG CHICK FACTOR: Two words. Ninja women.

-- David Rosiak

The Punisher is currently available on video and DVD.

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