If you were to tell me only ten years ago that not only would we get an uncompromising, unedited and unsanitized version of the Punisher, but he was due to show up in an actual fucking Spider-Man movie, I’d have understandably laughed in your face. Surely the most tonally difficult of all the Marvel characters to balance, Frank Castle was a relic of the 70s that gave us such cruel, unyielding movies such as Dirty Harry and Death Wish and because of that, various incarnations have all fired wide of the mark while trying to pin him down on screen.
The Dolph Lundgren version had the body count and stature, but lacked gravitas and that all-important skull body armour; the Thomas Jane attempt had the gravitas and skull, but struggled to get the cruel world Frank lives in correct; and finally the Ray Stevenson smartly went full comic book, but sacrificed the humanity.
And then came Jon Bernthal…
Seemingly set before the events of Daredevil: Born Again season one, we find Frank Castle between shows and rotting away in an apartment in Little Sicily as he’s tormented once again by his demons. As he’s wracked by visions and hallucinations of such old friends and colleagues such as Curtis Hoyle, he tries to find other such diversions such as doing pull-ups until his hands bleed. However, mirroring the broiling torment that exists inside Frank is the social turmoil that exists outside the door of his crummy apartment because his murder of the majority of the Gnucci crime family has left a power vacuum that’s left the streets in utter chaos.
Ignoring the deranged animals that run rampant, Frank goes to the grave of his family and admits that he’s just too tired to go on, seemingly hinting that he wants to finally join them by his own hand, but despite the fact that the Punisher’s rage may have finally burned out, he gets an unexpected visit from a crippled Ma Gnucci who has a major score to settle. After the Punisher had fatally whittled her family down to just her, she has a terrible vengeance in store that’ll not only affect him, but everyone in the neighbourhood. Gnucci has put a sizable hot out on Frank and will be sharing his location at a specific time and which point every lunatic and psycho in the area will decent on Little Sicily and tear it to shreds until Castle is found. Still horribly burnt out Frank seems to accept this violent fate, but once he hears that his neighbours are bearing the brunt of his crimes, Frank eventually starts to get back in the game.
With an entire building full of bloodthirsty criminals standing between him an Ma Gnucci, Frank’s certainly got his work cut out for him, but as Castle gradually gets his groove back via ways of mass murder and mutilation, he just might find his purpose once again.
When it comes to being able to channel Frank Castle in a way that both delivers the devestating body count he requires, but doesn’t veer too far into making him an out and out hero, Jon Bernthal has had about just as much positive effect on the character as Garth Ennis did when he started writing him back in 2001. With the actor’s trademark voice and physicality in play, we finally had a Punisher who not only could bring the pain, but emote it too, offering up a version of the comic book fave that was riddled with PTSD, but channeled those inner horrors against wrong doers to thrilling effect. Yes, what Frank does is wrong – but sometimes wrong is necessary. However, while Netflix’s Punisher show gave Bernthal licence to fully own such a tricky character, sometimes the plot held back on fully pulling the trigger, arguably making things a little too complex. Rest assured, there’s no danger of that with The Punisher: One Last Kill. As only the third entry in Marvel’s Special Presentation series, it seems that Bernthal (also on co-writing duties) and director Reinaldo Marcus (Bob Marley: One Love, King Richard) Green gave been given free reign to do whatever they want to continue to make the Punisher their own; and what they’ve chosen to do is stick him in The Raid.
By now, both seasons of Daredevil: Born Again have proved that the MCU isn’t fucking around anymore when it comes to delivering necessary rough stuff and with this stripped-back, 50 minute, mini adventure, we get ever closer to that most elusive of comic book ventures: the perfect Punisher venture. In fact, while One Last Kill admittedly covers a bit of old ground, it’s the closest we’ve come by far to that elusive installment.
The first half of the special allows Bernthal to plumb the depths of misery as Jason R. Moore’s Curtis and even Debora Ann Woll’s Karen Page pop up as figments of Frank’s mental illness to mock, tease and even guide our troubled anti-hero past his suicidal thoughts to that all important resurgence. To do that, the show wisely uses that old trick of justifying Castle’s savagery by pitting it against a string of hollering, feral maniacs that feel like they’ve spilled right out of Death Wish 3. When faced with criminals who casually murder dogs, attack families and beat on the guy who played Bubbles in The Wire, Frank’s maniacal solution to crime doesn’t seem all that excessive and once the more Gareth Evans inspired part of the special starts, we’re treated to an orgy of violence that finally fixes the notion of an on-screen Punisher (hopefully) once and for all. In fact, the only real issue I have with One Last Kill is that at times it feels more like a proof of concept for something far bigger. The introduction of the crippled Ma Gnucci is a huge nod to the Ennis era of comics, as is her towering bodyguard named Barry (short for Barracuda, perhaps?), but after the special is left somewhat open-ended, you find yourself hungering for something more. Yes, we’ll meet Frank again in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but he certainly won’t be beating up thugs while his legs on fire, or executing puppy killers in the street on a PG-13 rating. We can only hope that Marvel will see that with both Born Again and One Last Kill doing the rounds, a feature length movie will soon be in the offering that’ll see matters settled between Castle abd Gnucci, because if we could also move past the oft-used trope of Castle being on the cusp of retiring, this is one franchise that could be unstoppable.
Building up a genuinely heartfelt start that explores Frank’s trauma like never before, One Last Kill soon disproves it’s own title by offering up fucking dozens of them. However, thanks to the loving care of both Bernthal and Green, it seems that we finally have a creative duo that properly understands what it truly means to deal out punishment while wearing a bloody great skull on your chest. Be it a new series, a full-length movie, or even a further string of Special Presentations, Castle deserves far more room to breathe than merely playing a grumpy, kill-happy foil to Daredevil or Spider-Man.
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