THE PUNISHER (1989): Grow Up To Be A Good Man. Because If You Don’t, I’ll Be Waiting.

The Punisher (1989) – Directed by Mark Goldblatt – Starring Dolph Lundgren, Louis Gossett, Jr., Jeroen Krabbe, Kim Miyori, and Nancy Everhard.

What the f*ck do you call 125 murders in 5 years?

Work in progress.

THE PUNISHER is way better than it needs to be, and a perfect example of what can happen if you hire total professionals like Dolph Lundgren, Louis Gossett, Jr., and Jeroen Krabbe to be in your movie.

Make no mistake, THE PUNISHER is a pure, 1980s R-rated, B-movie action flick. There’s loads of violence, loads of swearing, a few cheesy comedic lines, and loads of violence. It also has a pretty decent script, in that it creates situations that force us to look at the Punisher in a non-heroic light; the film could have easily just offered up 90 minutes of Frank Castle (Lundgren) killing mobsters and hit their core cinematic audience, but the filmmakers make Frank challenge his own ethics.

One of the most fascinating aspects of THE PUNISHER is how Lundgren plays Castle as so incredibly haunted his killings have become almost perfunctory. It’s literally like he doesn’t know how to do anything else, including giving up. When he gets wind of a massive drug shipment coming in to the docks and then witnesses the whole shipment go massively wrong as the Yakuza show up and start killing the Italian-American mobsters, the smart play would be for Frank to simply sit back and watch and better assess the situation. The smart play would be to let the two sides pick each other off, as he strategizes later in the film, but he can’t help himself. When one person takes a shot at him from an even higher perch than the one he’s in, he fires back, and then decides to jump down into the fray because what the hell, right?

The introduction of the Yakuza into the film is a really smart move. The opening sequences set up the return of crime boss Gianni Franco (Krabbe). The Punisher has devastated the city’s organized crime scene, and Franco feels he’s the man to unite all of the family’s under one roof – his. The massive drug shipment was his way of bringing everyone together, and now the Yakuza have not only screwed that up, they’re making a play to take 75% of the mob’s profit. I really love what the film does with Franco – all of the other mob bosses are all p*ss and fire, wanting to fight, but Franco is a pragmatist, seeing that these Japanese interlopers are the real deal. Instead of being an act of masculine aggression, Franco’s declaration that “we’re going to war” is reserved, and almost resigned to defeat.

The Yakuza then kidnap the children of the American mobsters and put Frank in a moral dilemma: let the Yakuza and mafia kill each other, or step in and save the children.

Blessedly, THE PUNISHER is not an origin movie. Instead, the film does what I’ve been saying more films should do: start us midstream and fold the origin in as we go. We get flashbacks at this point in the film that show how Frank’s family was killed. Frank’s conscious is given voice by Shake (Barry Otto), a bum who serves as Frank’s informant. Shake often rhymes when he speaks because he used to be an actor, which seems pretty stupid unless you imagine that every actor you know speaks in rhymes when he’s off the set.

And then it’s pretty awesome.

Shake calls out Frank’s lack of activity. “I punish the guilty,” Frank insists.

“And as a result, the innocents must suffer?” Shake asks.

This exchange eventually gets Frank out of his stupor and he goes and saves the kids. There’s a fun action scene in an abandoned amusement park, which ends with Frank getting captured by the Yakuza, and then he steals a bus to rescue all of the kids except for Franco’s son. I love how the action scenes are basic and violent. When the film tries to get a bit artsy and film a prolonged sequence under red lights, it falls a bit flat. We don’t need it. Watching Frank and the Yakuza punch and kick and stab and shoot each other is enough.

Lundgren is fantastic from start to finish here. It’s easy to say it looks like he’s sleepwalking through the film, but he’s committed to this idea of Frank being burned out; he gives the part exactly what it calls for, and that’s what actors are supposed to deliver. When he gets arrested and his old partner Jake (Gossett, Jr.) confronts him after five years of chasing him, Frank insists, “Frank is dead!”

Whether he is dead is part of what makes this film so interesting beyond all the killing. Frank can try to hide inside the Punisher persona, but what Shake and Jake keep trying to do is pull the old Frank Castle back out.

They’re only partly successful. After Frank is moved to help get the kids back (which he does on his own, without the mob’s help), the mob breaks him out of police custody and this time, Frank has to work directly with Franco. It’s an uneasy alliance, of course, but they get Franco’s kid and with the Yakuza eliminated, it’s left to Franco and Frank to settle their score. With Castle being more severely injured, Franco has the upper hand, but his kid doesn’t want to see his dad kill the man who saved him. He doesn’t listen. The two men fight to the death and Frank wins. The kid picks up the discarded gun and threatens to kill Frank.

In the film’s most chilling moment, Frank gets on his knees in front of the kid and puts the gun to his forehead, telling the kid to pull the trigger.

So, yeah, good parenting skills on display from the man in black.

The kid doesn’t pull the trigger and as Frank leaves he actually threatens the kid! Seriously, he’s not like, “Go to school. Eat your vitamins. Pray to a non-existent God. Live a life on non-violence.” Instead, he tells the kid, “Grow up to be a good man. Because if you don’t … I’ll be waiting.”

Nice.

The moment strongly reminded me of that moment in Kill Bill when Beatrice (Uma Thurman) knows that the kid of the woman she just killed deserves her own chance at revenge someday, and that by getting her own revenge, she’s also made herself the justifiable target of a future revenge. It’s a powerful scene about the circle of violence, and we see that here, too. Now, THE PUNISHER doesn’t have the same lofty cinematic ambitions as Kill Bill, but Frank is acknowledging that the violence he’s committed this day could create a future enemy that has to be killed, too. He’s letting the kid know that he’s not going anywhere, so where Beatrice is accepting of the circle of violence, Frank is looking to cut it off before it comes back on him.

I really like THE PUNISHER. It’s a low-budget, B-grade ’80s action movie, but it’s one of the very best of the genre. There’s no mucking about here to clean this story up – it’s R-rated and doesn’t shy away from it. Louis Gossett, Jr. is amazing and my one real complaint with the movie is that his story disappears from the film for too long in the middle portion, and that the subplot with his partner (Nancy Everhard, who was also in The Trial of the Incredible Hulk the same year that THE PUNISHER was released) doesn’t really go anywhere.

The rest of the film does, however. If you’re looking to watch a great, classically-rendered superhero movie, well, this ain’t it. But if you’re looking for a good ’80s action movie, THE PUNISHER fits the bill nicely.

CASA DE MI PADRE: Do You Speak American?

Casa de Mi Padre (2012) – Directed by Matt Piedmont – Starring Will Ferrell, Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, Génesis Rodríguez, Pedro Armendáriz, Jr., Nick Offerman, Efren Ramirez, and Adrian Martinez.

CASA DE MI PADRE est un film pris quelque part entre gimmick et de la parodie, et le résultat est un film parvient à être à la fois très bon et plutôt ennuyeux, en même temps.

CASA est une comédie dans le style dit telenovela. Je sais que parce que chaque examen ou débat autour du film dit: «telenovela». Je n’ai jamais vu plus de quelques minutes de toute telenovela particulier, si mon plaisir de la CASA pourrait être entravé (ou aidé, pour autant que je sache) par ce manque de familiarité. Ce que je sais, c’est que CASA est la comédie qui n’a pas rit de très nombreux, mais ne parviennent à être légèrement intéressant. Il a un peu de ce Grindhouse se sentent à lui en ce que le film de fissures à l’occasion ou apparaît pour vous laisser savoir que vous regardez quelque chose avec un budget limité.

Il ya un peu de déconnecter ici entre la performance Ferrell et le reste du film, qui est fait à dessein, mais pas toujours effectivement rendu. Ferrell joue Armando Alvarez, le fils éleveur de Senor Alvarez (Pedro Armendariz, Jr.), qui est fier de sa non-élevage, super réussie, et (comme il s’avère) de trafic de drogue fils Raul (Diego Luna). Raul est rentré chez lui pour annoncer qu’il va se marier à Sonia (Génesis Rodríguez), mais aussi secrètement développer son activité dans le trafic de drogue Onza de (Gael García Bernal) territoire. Armando ne pense pas assez bonne Sonia pour son frère parce qu’elle n’est pas amoureuse de lui, mais il n’aime pas non plus que son frère est un trafiquant de drogue.

Ferrell joue Armando relativement simple, il a quelques bizarreries qui génèrent l’humour, mais beaucoup de rires les viennent de jouer Armando trop dramatique.

Je donne Ferrell et réalisateur Matt Piémont crédit pour se rendre compte que le truc ici – CASA est un film en langue espagnole, y compris une partie Ferrell – ne suffit pas à propulser un film entier, de sorte qu’ils ne mettre un peu d’effort dans de nous donner une histoire. Le problème, c’est qu’il ya il ya quelques morceaux vraiment drôles, absurdes (comme le film de geler le mouvement pour nous dire qu’ils avaient filmé une séquence d’action vraiment super entre une panthère et un coyote, mais ils ne pouvaient pas le montrer à cause des membres d’équipage sont morts), mais certains sur le mélodrame supérieur (qui je pense est le bit de telenovela) et les deux de ceux-ci font CASA un film qui ne permet pas toujours aider tout au long, qui se sent souvent comme ça se combat.

Il ya beaucoup de violence dans le film qui me fait penser qu’ils auraient été mieux de faire un film qui parodie quelque chose comme machette avec caractère littéral Ferrell dans le milieu d’un lot de folie.

Avec tout cela étant dit, cependant, il ya quelque chose d’admirable sur la CASA DE MI PADRE. Je comprends que Ferrell est en place pour essayer quelque chose de nouveau et il ya des moments où l’histoire de la CASA fait vraiment pour une montre d’engagement, surtout quand américaine DEA Agent Parker (Nick Offerman) arrive pour essayer d’obtenir des barons de la drogue mexicains à s’entre-tuer. En fait, les meilleures parties du film sont lorsque le conflit mexicaine / américaine est soit sur l’écran ou en cours de discussion. Armando n’est pas heureux avec des médicaments qui traitent de Raul, mais Raul lui dit qu’il vient de le vendre aux Américains, alors c’est correct. De même, Parker ne pense pas que la justice veut dire quelque chose ici-bas parce que c’est juste Mexicains Mexicains meurtre. Avec Ferrell au milieu du conflit mexicaine / américaine, CASA a du mordant réel pour elle.

Dans le casting est tout solide, en particulier Nick Offerman et Génesis Rodríguez, mais ce n’est film Ferrell tout autant que Talladega Nights ou vedette .

CASA DE MI PADRE vaut certainement la peine d’une montre, mais finalement c’est un film que j’admire de plus pour sa tentative de son exécution.

1. Thank you, Google Translate.
2. Yes. I know. That’s French.
3. Because it’s funnier that way. Ferrell admitted on The Daily Show that he learned his lines, not Spanish, so there wasn’t much improvisation.
3. I really have no idea if Google Translate did a good job or not. I totally blame their programming as much as my own laziness if it doesn’t make sense.
4. Here’s the subtitled version:

CASA DE MI PADRE is a film caught somewhere between gimmick and parody, and the result is a film manages to be both pretty good and rather tedious at the same time.

CASA is a comedy told in telenovela style. I know that because every review or discussion of the film says, “telenovela.” I’ve never watched more than a few minutes of any particular telenovela, so my enjoyment of CASA might be hindered (or helped, for all I know) by this lack of familiarity. What I do know is that CASA is comedy that doesn’t have very many laughs, but does manage to be mildly interesting. It’s got a bit of that Grindhouse feel to it in that the film occasionally cracks or pops to let you know that you’re watching something with a limited budget.

There’s a bit of disconnect here between Ferrell’s performance and the rest of the film, which is purposely done but not always effectively rendered. Ferrell plays Armando Alvarez, the rancher son of Senor Alvarez (Pedro Armendáriz, Jr.), who’s prouder of his non-ranching, super successful, and (as it turns out) drug-dealing son Raul (Diego Luna). Raul has come home to announce he’s getting married to Sonia (Génesis Rodríguez), but also to secretly expand his drug dealing business into Onza’s (Gael García Bernal) territory. Armando doesn’t think Sonia’s good enough for his brother because she’s not in love with him, but he also doesn’t like that his brother is a drug dealer.

Ferrell plays Armando relatively straight; he has some quirks that generate humor but a lot of the laughs come from playing Armando overly dramatic.

I give Ferrell and director Matt Piedmont credit for realizing that the gimmick here – CASA is a Spanish-language film, including Ferrell’s part – isn’t enough to propel an entire movie, so they do put some effort into giving us a story. The problem is that there there’s some really funny, absurd bits (like the film freezing the action to tell us that they had filmed a really great action sequence between a panther and a coyote but they couldn’t show it because crew members died), but then some over the top melodrama (which I guess is the telenovela bit) and the two of these make CASA a movie that doesn’t always help itself along, that often feels like it’s fighting itself.

There’s a lot of violence in the film that makes me think they would have been better off doing a film that parodied something like MACHETE with Ferrell’s literal character in the middle of a lot of craziness.

With all that being said, however, there is something admirable about CASA DE MI PADRE. I appreciate that Ferrell is up for trying something new and there are times when CASA’s story really makes for an engaging watch, especially when American DEA Agent Parker (Nick Offerman) arrives to try and get the Mexican drug lords to kill each other. In fact, the best parts of the film are when the Mexican/American conflict is either on display or being discussed. Armando isn’t happy with Raul dealing drugs, but Raul tells him he’s just selling it to Americans, so it’s okay. Likewise, Parker doesn’t think justice means anything down here because it’s just Mexicans killing Mexicans. With Ferrell in the middle of the Mexican/American conflict, CASA has some real bite to it.

The supporting cast is all solid, especially Nick Offerman and Génesis Rodríguez, but this is Ferrell’s movie every bit as much as Talladega Nights or Anchorman.

CASA DE MI PADRE is certainly worth a watch, but ultimately it’s a film that I admire more for its attempt than its execution.