'Punisher' boasts grit, gore

The scene is all too familiar: a happy man loves his life and family, and is getting along superbly. Just when everything looks great, a hit squad kills his entire family and leaves him for dead. Welcome to "The Punisher," the latest in a long, long line of comic-book movies. Though it may be based on an old Marvel comic, the Punisher character is far different than most other superheroes. First of all, he has absolutely no powers - just guns and knives and other such fun toys. Secondly, he's hardly there to be gallant and save the day. The Punisher kills, kills some more and then blows things up. That is the simple premise of the entire series and the movie. Strangely enough, it mostly works. Thomas Jane stars as Frank Castle, the former Special Ops soldier and FBI agent whose personal tragedy leads to a life of vendetta. The trouble starts when Castle's last mission as an agent leads to the death of underworld boss Howard Saint's(a doughy yet diabolical John Travolta) son. Saint has the Castles killed, but Frank isn't quite dead, though by all logic he should be. After slowly healing and quickly seething, Castle moves into a flophouse out of an Upton Sinclair novel and begins his revenge scheme. Also inhabiting the cockroach-ridden dump are three other close-knit misfits who eventually befriend Castle and who seem weirdly out of place in the movie. While the movie sharply diverges from the comic, all the elements of the Marvel anti-hero are here. The most obvious meaning of this is the fact that "The Punisher" is surprisingly violent, surpassing even the expectations of fans of the comic. Castle uses not only guns, but crowbars, knives and anti-personnel mines to dispatch scores of semi-deserving lowlifes. Even for the desensitized, the scenes with knife-killing are particularly flinch-inducing. One unexpected facet of the movie is the humor. Somehow, getting beaten by an enormous Russian assassin, threatened by a songwriting murderer and blowtorch torture are all material for laughs. At times, the writing lessens the tension of what is mostly a thoroughly bitter movie, but at times it seems thoroughly inappropriate. Throwing scalding soup in a man's face and then doing physical comedy near a dead body seems to be in bad taste. Jane gives a good performance as a brooding, alcoholic hitman. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos looks confused the entire time while trying to get Castle off the sauce. Travolta, playing the same villain in every film, finds his niche here as the psychopathic Saint. At about two hours, "The Punisher" may tire all but longtime fans. The feel of the movie is more Bronson than X-Men, but for those who've already Killed Bill, "The Punisher" may be just the treat for those depraved minds. Grade: B+