I want to get something out of the way real quick: I love the Punisher. He’s one of my favorite Marvel characters (you can’t really call him a hero) because even though he’s motivated by a strict moral code, he challenges preconceptions of the inherent goodness of crime fighters, and makes you wonder at what point it crosses over into fascism. I like the Thomas Jane Punisher, although it’s uneven, and Punisher: War Zone belongs in a goddamn museum. When Jon Bernthal took over the role in Daredevil‘s second season, he delivered a nuanced, layered performance that was equal parts tragedy and horror. He gave the character room to grow, and allowed him to do so without sacrificing the central tenets of Frank Castle.
All that preamble is just to get to this point: good lord, what a horrible time for Marvel’s The Punisher to premiere. There’s a mass shooting nearly every day now in this country (over 300 at the time of this writing), and we as a country – with a lot of help from a Republican Congress – are doing nothing to prevent them. We’ve grown so desensitized that even the goddamn President, scatterbrained as he always is, confused Rancho Tehama, CA with Sutherland Springs, TX. This isn’t a bad time for The Punisher, a show almost completely centered around random shootings – it’s probably the worst time.
Which begs the question: is there a good time, any more? Is there ever going to be a good time, in 21st-century America, to watch The Punisher? We live our lives with the certitude that anyone is a potential Frank Castle, and we’re all precipitously close to being part of someone’s statement.
I had to get that out of the way. I promise, it’s the end of the philosophical part of the review. But it’s the elephant in the room, and quite frankly it’s stunning that Netflix didn’t postpone the release date for the show (but then again, see the paragraph above). So all that being said, how’s the actual show?
Well, it’s always hard to tell after just one episode. That wasn’t always the case; Daredevil got off to a great start, and so did Luke Cage. But the Marvel/Netflix shows have seem to become a bit complacent, trusting that we’re already invested enough in these characters to go along with the show. It certainly helps that we’ve seen Bernthal in this role before, and the cold open to “3 AM” sets the tone nicely.
There’s some great cross-cutting, as Frank teaches his daughter a song on the guitar; we see him with her, then playing it by himself. Director Tom Shankland, a veteran of Luke Cage and Iron Fist, shoots his actors surrounded by negative space, and as physically imposing as Bernthal is, he does a great job of looking utterly alone. Frank goes from screaming, to something closer to catatonia, and this is before we see him commit any acts of violence (Daredevil season two notwithstanding). The Punisher is less interested in the sickly cathartic violence for which the character is best known; it’s more focused on showing the effects of PTSD.
The violence, however, is nicely done. It’s certainly bloody, but more restrained than, say, War Zone (although that applies to most movies in general). At the beginning, the legend of the Punisher is alive and well. He works his way through the ranks of a cartel, running over bikers, strangling a man in an airport bathroom, and most impressively, shooting a cartel lieutenant in Mexico from a perch in Texas. It’s not gruesome, but it is effective. Bernthal does dead inside extremely well. Frank gets no joy out of his crusade, and even admits as much. “What does it change if I’m dead?” a man begs. Frank responds: “Nothing.”
“3 AM” then has a six-month time jump, which we’ll get to, but we need to press pause to mention how badly Marvel has fucked up their timeline. Kevin Feige has admitted as much. It arguably began with one title card in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and it continues here. The Punisher doesn’t clarify when the events are taking place: before or after season two of Daredevil? Is the prologue concurrent with Daredevil? If so, when does he go to jail? Does he get out of jail, and then start the prologue of “3 AM”? This wouldn’t be an issue if The Punisher made it clear if it’s a prequel or a sequel. I like all the Marvel properties, by and large, but the issue with the timeline is becoming an issue that Marvel needs to address, pronto.
Frank is hiding in plain sight. Everyone thinks the Punisher is dead, so he lives under the name Pete Castiglione, a stoic construction worker who spends all day swinging a hammer (at this point Bernthal has longer hair and a beard, which is a good look for him). The A-story of “3 AM” is pretty linear. A few guys from the crew stick up a Mob poker game, a scene that plays as almost a remake of the same event in Killing Them Softly, and one of them accidentally shows his ID. The others decide they have to kill him, and Frank intervenes. You can imagine how.
Now, here’s the thing. I said earlier that The Punisher isn’t solely focused on the catharsis of watching someone kill objectively awful people. But it’s still baked into the DNA of this character. When Frank picks up Chekhov’s sledgehammer and brutally dispatches three men, it’s both hard to watch and hard to look away from. With a few exceptions, Shankland doesn’t go over the top with the violence, leaving most of it off screen, letting Bernthal show that none of this is fun for Frank. A few times he unleashes an animalistic howl that is always unsettling. The Punisher might have its issues, but Bernthal isn’t one of them.
Beyond that, there’s the usual Marvel mishegoss: a Homeland Security agent named Dinah Madani (Amber Rose Revah) and her partner Sam Stein (Michael Nathanson, who looks a bit like Brett Ratner, another case of unfortunate timing) is on the trail of the Punisher, who’s she’s convinced is still alive. Her superiors are having none of it. There’s a pretty solid chance that Madani and Frank will cross paths, and if she doesn’t help him outright, she’ll end up turning a blind eye. If this sounds like Luke Cage, that’s because it is like Luke Cage.
Ignoring timing issues for the moment (I’ll try not to dwell on that in every review), “3 AM” was a solid, if slightly unremarkable, debut. As realtors say of a house that needs some work, there are good bones here. But it’s worth watching The Punisher for Jon Bernthal, and at the end of the day, it’s pretty cool to tune into a Marvel show for the performance.
3.5/5
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