The Punisher (1989)

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After his family is killed, a cop (Dolph Lundgren) assumes a vengeance-seeking identity, and begins to slaughter dozens of criminals while living in a city's sewer.

Based on the Marvel comic, "The Punisher" is awful. I couldn't stand the first few minutes- will Hollywood ever get live television reporting right? -but then I started watching it as a goofball comedy mocking all those 1980's action films, and it almost started working. Almost. There's no skull T-shirt or Stan Lee cameo even though the Marvel name is all over this, much to the chagrin of many other reviewers. The action scenes are nothing short of ludicrous. Louis Gossett, Jr. is awesome as Frank Castle's partner, much better than the material he found himself in, but Lundgren turns in his usual somnambulist performance. There are some very cringe scenes involving children and guns, and Yakin's screenplay is oddly constructed- was this intentional, or the product of post-production tampering? Only one of two feature films editor Mark Goldblatt helmed ("Dead Heat" was much more fun), and I wish he could have done more directing. This was followed by a few reboot films and a television series, but no direct sequels.

Stats:
(1989) 89 min. (*) out of five stars
-Directed by Mark Goldblatt
-Written by Boaz Yakin
-Cast: Dolph Lundgren, Louis Gossett Jr., Jeroen Krabbe, Kim Miyori, Bryan Marshall, Nancy Eberhard, Barry Otto, Brian Rooney, Zoska Aleece, Kenji Yamaki, Hirofumi Kanayama, Larry McCormick, Todd Boyce
(R)-Contains strong physical violence, strong gun violence, strong violence involving children, gore, profanity, brief nudity, adult situations, drug references, alcohol use