The Punisher: War Zone - Movie Review

This Punisher movie is really not a sequel to the 2004 movie with Thomas Jane. It's more of a new version that was adapted from one of the spin-off comics called The Punisher WarZone that was written and published in the early to mid 1990's.

This version of the Punisher doesn't get heavy into the past and what made Frank Castle into what he is, but more of a jump into a story with Frank Castle, played by British actor Ray Stevenson, who was in the HBO series Rome. The Punisher is out to take down all the crime families in the city and in this particular story he turns Billy Russoti(Dominic West, from The Wire) into a warped criminal with a twisted messed up face called Jigsaw.

So the movie has some pretty graphic violence and some good action sequences. The Punisher certainly takes no prisoners, but in this movie he ends up taking down an undercover cop, who had infiltrated Jigsaws organization. Now he feels he owes a debt to the wife and daughter. He then finds out they are in danger and now need to protect them and take care of them until he can take down Jigsaw.

Well Jigsaw and his brother Looney Bin Jim get the family and draw The Punisher to the hotel that is heavily armed and he has to come up with a plan to save them. Part of this is to team up with the police and FBI to run some interference for him to get in the building and to the woman and her daughter.

The whole next part of the movie plays out as a wild and crazy gun battle action scene. Bullets are flying and people are dying, it's quite insane. Then as he approaches the room with Jigsaw old Looney Bin Jim goes one on one in a pretty cool fight with The Punisher. From there Jigsaw puts him in a place to chose between friend or kid and he does an awesome job of taking out the brothers with sacraficing his friend.

Overall I thought it was a pretty well done movie with a good story and a lot of action. I know most critics blasted it, but it was a lot better than what they said. If you are looking for a good action shoot'em up movie - check it out!

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5