PUNISHER: THE NETFLIX SERIES is very "Bourne-ing."

Let me tell you something, folks.  I am a huge fan of the Punisher.  I have the character's first appearance in THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #129.  I have just about every issue of every volume of the Punisher's main run of comics as well as a ton of his appearances in other characters' comics.  I think he is just the tops!  Superheroes are often the outsiders of society.  If that is so then Frank Castle is the outsider of outsiders.  He cannot rely on his superpowers to save the day because he has none!  What a fascinating hero in a world of super powered superheroes. I tell you all of this to assure you that this review is not going to be one of those "It sucks because the show isn't like the comics" kind of reviews.  I promise.  I will say, however, that Netflix's THE PUNISHER is terrible for so many other reasons.  Yea, that's right.  I didn't care too much for this show.  Everyone else seems to love it but I found the show to be a 13 hour endurance test of boring.  It's a thin unimaginative story populated with a bunch of characters that serve as oversize luggage that drag down and get in the way of anything interesting happening.  Oh, and the show is nothing whatsoever like the comics!

The story is another origin story!  Can you believe it?  How ballzy do you have to be to put out another origin story of the same version of the character?  It is like the creators of this show don't know what to do with this guy or are too afraid to write stories that concern what the Punisher actually does.  So in DAREDEVIL season 2 we are introduced to Frank Castle who is hunting down those who murdered his family.  By the end of the show he gets them all.  Now for his new show he discovers that there was one more person left and he spends the entire 13 episodes trying to find out who he is and kill him.  You can rest assure that season 2 of the PUNISHER will feature yet another character tied to the death of Frank's family that he will have to go after for another 13 episodes.

The show starts off with Frank Castle played by Jon Bernthal running around killing the little fish that were tied to the death of his family.  He is wearing the white punishment death skull prominently on his bulletproof vest so I took that as a good sign.  I thought all that stuff with his family was over.  The show can move on into new territory.  But then after he kills them all in the first five minutes of the first episode he burns the vest and retires to hitting concrete walls with a hammer.  What is he going to do for the rest of the season?  Oh, he is going to go around and yet again uncover the conspiracy that got his family made not alive anymore with the help of his new friend and computer whiz, Micro.  Fun?

Jon Bernthal really isn't playing the Punisher.  He is playing a character that should have been called the Revenger.  His motivation is based only on getting revenge on those that wronged him.  The Thomas Jane movie of the same name also made the same mistake.  Once the Punisher has dealt with those who murdered his family what is left for Franky to do?  What would motivate him to go on and wage war on bad guys?  It feels wrong for him to go on killing unless he is unstable mentally which this show insinuates with his apparent PTSD.  If there was any doubt that Frank Castle is not the Punisher the scene where Frank has a gun to the head of Turk, the gun runner who also helped traffic people in the slave trade.  Turk is kind of a running gag always popping up in the previous Netflix Marvel shows like DAREDEVIL and LUKE CAGE.  What was funny about his character is that you knew that he would show up in the PUNISHER show and that he was going to die because Daredevil and Luke Cage don't kill but the Punisher does.  We knew it was too good not to happen but it didn't.  After finding Turk with all his weapons ready to be sold to the city's bad element Netflix's Punisher just knocks him out.  That is when you know that this is not the Punisher.  He is the Revenger.  Turk had nothing to do with the death of his family so Frank had no reason to kill him.

When you see Punisher fan art you usually see Frank Castle armed to the teeth carrying two big guns with two rows of grenades strapped criss-crossed to his vest and ammo magazines protruding from every possible pocket stitched to his clothing with all that weight doing nothing from disrupting his aim as he, with his face frozen in a warriors scream, blasts away at the unseen baddies that most likely lay dead in a hail of gunfire.  This is how we sum up what the Punisher does and how we want to see him do it.  The Netflix seems embarrassed by this character.  Frank doesn't go after drug dealers and rapists.  No, he instead meets and gets involved with Micro's family or dreams of his dead wife over and over again with additional flashback sequences to constantly remind us that he misses his family.  Micro too has his own flashback sequences with his family too.  How many times do we see Micro looking at a computer monitor watching his family on camera?  How many times does Frank dreams or flashbacks to his family?  The show creators can't seem to think of anything interesting to put on the screen.  But they sure do make it a priority to stop any possible momentum the story may have made with these family moments

The name of this show should have been titled THE JASON BOURNE SHOW.  What we have here is an uninspired remake of the Bourne films.  The bad guys are all CIA, FBI or politicians in suits who did bad things during the war.  Now they have to kill the rogue soldier because he knows too much.  Now he has to run from the authorities, beat up two cops then jump down a stairwell and get into unimpressive car chases while killing former military henchmen.  There is nothing in this show that we haven't seen before.  Its a typical American action film in episodic form.

The Netflix original THE PUNISHER simply tells the wrong kind of story.  It should be an action show about a one man war against crime.  This show is more of a family drama wrapped up in a police procedural.  Bernthal could be a good Punisher but his portrayal as a PTSD ridden homeless guy is just sad.  He doesn't emote badassery.  He just cries sometimes or comes across as an upset dock worker.  It should be simple not a bunch of conspiracy nonsense with the usual twists and turns.  The Punisher show should break the formula of telling one long story arch over 13 episodes.  Every episode should be about him tracking down a killer of killers and killing them like a monster of the week kind of thing.  DEXTER did it on occassion. 

So what will happen in season 2?  I predict that he will once again go after another former military bad guy that is revealed to be involved with the death of Frank's family that will also be involved with a bunch of White Supremacists.  Expect more dream sequences and flashbacks of Frank's family too.  I am surprised about how many people who are Punisher fans love this show.  I just don't get it.  I never read or watched a single negative review of it. I'm sure there are some out there but I didn't look very hard.  I figure they are caught up in the Disney/Marvel hype unwilling to accept the fact that the show does not deliver the most basic motivations of the character. The PUNISHER never moves forward always stopping to look at the past developing a character that was already developed in DAREDEVIL season 2.  Just like Frank at the beginning of the first episode hitting walls over and over again with a hammer the show accomplishes nothing and bores the audience with redundancy.  Next time, Netflix let me write the dang show.


Jason

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (2016) When is a remake not a remake?

Well they did it, didn't they?  They finally did it.  The Hollywood Remake machine has finally claimed another American classic.  Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed they would have the tenacity to attempt to redo a nearly perfect classic film.  How much more taboo can you be?  The film that I am talking about of course is WORLD GONE WILD.  The post apocalyptic action western starring Bruce Dern is about a hippie from the sixties living in a world ravaged by nuclear warfare.  He lives in a small settlement of peaceful pioneers in the desert who find themselves under threat of Adam Ant and his cult of followers.  Out gunned Bruce Dern goes out and recruits about five other tough guys who manage to fight back and save the town from the weirdo attackers.  Of course the most memorable moment in the film is when Bruce Dern kills a bad guy by flipping a hub cap into his throat with the flick of a stick.  Oscar worthy and totally possible in real life I am sure.

Of course I am being silly.  Yes, WORLD GONE WILD is a remake (or homage) of the classic western, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, which was a remake of the classic samurai film, THE SEVEN SAMURAI, directed by Akira Kurosawa.  But we are here to review the new Denzel Washington film directed by Antoine Fuqua.  I bring up WORLD GONE WILD to make a point.  WGW has the spirit of the original as well as some lines of dialogue and some visual cues as well.  THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN 2016 only has a few lines of dialogue from the original.  The spirit of the original is completely absent from the new film.  The new MAGNIFICENT SEVEN barely even qualifies as a remake.  I would argue that it is not a remake at all, but just another "Men on a Mission" movie.  However, the idea that this is not a remake does not make the new movie better.  There is no fresh or new approach to the material.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN from 2016 is about a gunfighter named Sam (Not Chris!) who accepts a request from a recently widowed woman to help save her town from an evil rich guy and his army of bearded, duster wearing, professional gunmen.  Of course along the way Sam (The Denzel) recruits Chris Pratt and five other cohorts to lead the revolt against the army of TOMBSTONE movie enthusiasts.

I was shocked to see according to IMDB that the new MAGNIFICENT SEVEN was two hours and thirteen minutes long.  That is five minutes longer than the 1960's version!  How can the longer film have less story?  The new movie has gutted the story and replaced it all with guns, guns and more guns.  The movie becomes more of a standard revenge Western than an epic tale of men of questionable character deciding to fight for a noble cause with little chance of winning.  Yes, that is right I said "revenge Western."  Spoiler!!!!  At the end it is revealed that the rich bad guy, Bartholomew, had murdered Sam's family.  That revelation undercuts the whole point to the story.  The story narrative is incredibly important.  The filmmakers didn't trust the audiences to understand a motivation that wasn't revenge or getting gold and stuff.  The concept of fighting because it is the right thing to do seems to be too much of an abstract concept nowadays.  When Sam says the line from the original "I have been offered a lot, but never everything" it now suddenly has no meaning because he is only joining the cause for revenge.  Contrast that with Yul Brynner's character, Chris, who is moved by the gesture of poor farmers scraping together everything they have just to hire him to fight.  Which movie has more depth of character?  Which movie is going to move you more on an emotional level?

Akira Kurosawa's film was called THE SEVEN SAMURAI.  It is about seven samurai.  The 1960's MAGNIFICENT SEVEN is about seven gunfighters.  The new movie's cast of characters have different occupations.  You have Sam and the Mexican as gunfighters, a knife expert, a former Confederate who is now a sharp shooter, a Native American who joins for no reason, a mountain man and a gambler.  The diversity of their occupations doesn't hurt the modern film because there is no attempt to bring a connection between our protagonists and our super rich and super mean antagonist.  There is no time for character development despite the longer run time.  Longer run time means longer gun fights at the end.  1960's MAGNIFICENT had a cast of nothing but wandering gunfighters just like the wandering samurai from the source material.  These seven gunfighters are fighting a large band of outlaws who are also gunfighters.  They have similar job occupations.  Eli Wallachi leads the gang of outlaws who steals from the poor defenseless farmers.  Near the end he out smarts the heroes and takes over the small village but he doesn't kill them.  He respects them.  He sees himself as one of them even though he doesn't understand why they are fighting for some pathetic farmers.  The new movie has a stereotypical wealthy bad guy.  Only at the end is there an attempt to establish any connection our heroes and villain and it is only the deflating revelation that the bad guy killed Sam's family back in the day.  Standard stuff you would find in any Western.  That is why I really don't consider this a remake.  It is too far gone from the source material.  It is in name only that this is a remake.

Location.  Location.  Location.  The location is so important to both versions of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.  For the original it helps emphasize the thoughtful nature of our heroes.  They choose to fight the odds in a foreign land far away from anyone who will ever know their sacrifice.  There is no reward for what they are doing.  No one will remember them except for the farmers and villagers they help save.  They are alien to the Mexican culture.  Through the course of the film, however, the gunfighters envy the farmers for having a life worth living full of family and friends.  The farmers and the gunfighters learn from each other and develop a kinship.  Also the village is in the middle of nowhere far from any form of law enforcement which is ideal for Calvera and his men to take as they please.  The villagers are so desperate to hire men that are good with guns that they scrounge all of their most valuable possessions together making themselves even more poor than they were before.

The location of the remake takes place in the United States.  The townsfolk are not poor when compared to the farmers of the original.  The townsfolk gathering up their possessions to pay for their own Magnificent Seven isn't as meaningful.  They probably have more wealth where that came from.  Just look at how prosperous their town looks.   These people have jobs.  It feels disingenuous.  Being in the United States means there is some kind of government law somewhere about.  I know the film gives the classic cliche that the evil rich guy owns the law but if you are going to seek help from an army of bad guys, you don't buy gunfighters.  You go to a nearby fort and find the United States Army and ask them to help for free.  Does the bad guy own the Army too?  Not bloody likely.  Maybe there is some kind of HEAVEN'S GATE situation going on the movie doesn't mention.

Calvera played by Eli Wallachi is bombastic, deadly and a true threat.  He is a bandit, a killer, a man who has lived the life of adventure.  He lives outside of the law just like our heroes.  Contrast that to Bartholomew Bogue the wealthy murdering businessman.  Peter Sarsgaard is a great actor and he does his job well playing the antagonist but his diminutive size and stature does not present much of a menace to our stalwart band of larger than life heroes.  Being a man raised in great privilege makes him look soft having armed guards do his dirty work.

So what are we left with?  A descent action western and not much else.  Its not great but it is entertaining for the most part.  All the actors are great in their respected roles.  Denzel is always good.  You can never accuse the guy of giving a bad performance.  Chris Pratt is pretty much an early relative of STARLORD but that is a good thing for this film.  The Seven do have some good chemistry between them all that musters some attachment from the audience.  I like Byung-hun Lee as Billy Rocks the knife expert and his partner Goodnight Robicheaux the sharpshooter.  These two have an fun and sympathetic friendship where Billy keeps Goodnight in check from completely falling apart from his past experience in the Civil War.  If they had survived the movie they should have had a spin-off movie exploiting their further adventures.  Oops!  Spoilers!  Antoine Fuqua is a really good action director and he brings his "A Game" for this one.  There is a ton of glorious six gun blasting action in this movie and it's well staged and easy to follow.  No busy editing to distract form the action.  I particularly like all the horse stunt work Denzel does shooting bad guys from atop his magnificent black steed.  He is like a gymnast on a pommel horse.  Don't worry, folks.  The horse survives.  With all the shootings, stabbings and other major impalement issues I am surprised that this film managed to squeak out a PG-13.

Its funny.  Antoine Fuqua made another actioner that came out back in the old days of 2003.  It was TEARS OF THE SUN.  It starred Bruce Willis as a Special-Ops commander who leads a small group of soldiers who are sent into Africa to retrieve a doctor played by Monica Bellucci but find themselves ignoring orders to save a bunch of refugees fleeing a murderous army that seeks to kill them all.  Its an okay movie.  Tom Skerritt pops up in the film as an added bonus.  TEARS is way more closer to a MAGNIFICENT SEVEN remake than the Denzel movie.  Men in a foreign land who fight against a much larger army to save some people they have no apparent commonality with.  Sure it doesn't take place in the same time period and it lacks the memorable dialogue of the original but it does have the same core concept of few against many for the lives of strangers and the greater good.  See it for yourself.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN has more in common with any generic action movie (WORLD GONE WILD) concerning men recruited to undertake a dangerous mission than it does with the classic Western the movie steals it's title from.  Still the new movie is enjoyable with it's colorful cast and impressive amount of shoot'em up fun.  It is just too bad they didn't approach the material as an epic rather than just another BANG-BANG action movie.

Jason

SHOOT FIRST, DIE LATER (1974)

SHOOT FIRST, DIE LATER sounds more like a title for a Spaghetti Western than a modern day Eurocrime.  I'm sure this film has many different titles and translations depending on what market of the world it was distributed to.  Director Fernando Di Leo has made an excellent entry into the genre.  The first thirty minutes or so I wasn't very impressed.  The film is kind of ordinary in it's initial appearance.  Most likely the film was quickly shot.  There isn't any well thought out creative camera angles and compositions to make the film any different from all the other hastily made Dirty Harry knock offs from seventies Italy.  I can't even remember the music.  However, if you wait you will be rewarded with a simple but very compelling story about the consequences of police corruption.  Its the story that makes SHOOT FIRST worth a watch.  The ending is great too which I will be spoiling completely in this review because I love it!

SHOOT FIRST, DIE LATER opens with a large bow tied mafia boss named Pascal having a bunch of local drug dealers shot in the legs for doing business behind his back.  Later an eccentric old man tries to leave his house to get milk for his cat but his gate has been blocked by a couple of cars to where he can't get out.  This prompts the old man to file a police report.  Meanwhile police officer, Domenico (Luc Merenda) busts some gun runners.  After being glorified for busting them Domenico gets word to show up to a meeting.  That meeting ends up being with Pascal.  Domenico is actually working for the mob!  They inform Domenico that there was a report filed involving the parked cars that links Pascal to a recent murder.  Domenico is to get rid of that report.  The problem is that with the escalation of the murder investigation everyone involved with filing that report is now a witness and Domenico knows it.  The police officer who wrote down and filed that report just happens to be Domenico's father.

Domenico is a carefree kind of cop.  He busts the bad guys, gets into high speed car chases through the crowded streets of Milan and at the end of the day goes to his girlfriend Sandra's apartment to make sweet sweet love.  He does all of this and helps out the mob with their coffee and tobacco trade.  For Domenico and his partner Garrito (Rosario Borelli) this is small time harmless crime and easy money.  They see no wrong in it.  He doesn't realize that the Mafia are expanding their trade into guns and drugs until Domenico busts two Portuguese gun runners that are dealing with Pascal.  Domenico learns the hard way that working for the mob is not harmless fun and the only thing he needs to buy with his ill gotten gains is a fancy new casket.

What a great movie!  The first thirty minutes sets up the true drama that comes later almost unassumingly.  The movie comes across as just another silly tough guy movie but the moment you see that Domenico is corrupt everything changes.  There is an invisible noose around Domenico's neck that tightens with every passing scene as he tries to get that report out of the hands of his father.  We see that his father is very proud of him.  When Domenico has to reveal to his father that he is working for the mob it breaks his father's heart.  His father reluctantly brings Domenico the report breaking the law and making his father corrupt too.  His father never forgives him and he isn't given time to do so because he is murdered after giving the report to Domenico.  This propels Domenico into going after Pascal but doing so costs him everything.  

SHOOT FIRST, DIE LATER is about the price one pays for being corrupt.  Though he doesn't realize it, Domenico has lost his soul.  Our protagonist is not any better than the bad guys he gets revenge on.  One of the best and most revealing moments of the film is when Domenico, Garrito and another cop who we see early on is not part of the police corruption go to Sandra's apartment to save her from some hitmen.  After pulling up to the apartment Domenico sends the innocent cop to the front door to ring the bell.  Domenico just watches and waits as if he already knows what is about to happen next.  BOOM!  The cop dies from a rigged explosive after ringing the door bell.  Domenico shows no concern as he charges into the apartment only to find his girlfriend dead on the bed.  He sent the cop to die and it didn't bother him.  Domenico is truly lost to the world of sin.

Throughout the film Domenico tries to stay ahead of the mob.  He avoids their traps and bullets.  Finally he strikes a deal with Pascal's lawyer and second in command, Mazzanti played Richard Conti.  A meeting is set up where Domenico meets with Pascal face to face.  Pascal offers his hand to end all the trouble but Domenico shoots him in the face.  Mazzanti and his men leave but Garrito walks up behind Domenico and shoots him in the head.  And that is how the film ends.  You can never truly escape the consequences of corruption.  Its a cruel and unforgiving ending.  Garrito was a trusted friend. At the funeral for Domenico's father Garrito is the only one with tears in his eyes.  After going back and watching the movie again I have to wonder if he is crying for Domenico's loss or is he upset that he has already been tasked to kill his best friend?  Will Garrito have a similar fate in the future?

SHOOT FIRST, DIE LATER has some good tough guy moments to help pass the run time but it is the story that makes this a definite must watch.  Luc Merenda as Domenico is a surprise.  At the beginning I dismissed him as just another tough guy actor but his acting chops shine through in the scenes involving drama between him and his father.  You feel for him as he tries to persuade his father that what he did wasn't all that bad.

The Italians know how to have a good surprise ending.  They have to for having so many similar films produced at the same time.  I like the endings where at the end when all is said and done our hero still manages to get themselves perished at the hands of a friend or random thug.  BIG GUNS has a similar ending.  If you feel like you have seen everything then let me recommend the horror and Eurocrime films from Italy.  You never know what you are going to get.  Over the years I have become a reluctant fan and now embrace them looking for the next surprise.  The search never gets old.

Jason

SUSHI GIRL!

The best way to watch SUSHI GIRL is to go into it knowing as little as possible.  Let the story reveal itself through the progression of the movie's run time.  I say that because there really isn't much to this movie plotwise.  That is a good thing and a bad thing.  I like simple stories but by the end of this film I felt like I had seen all of this before.  That isn't to say SUSHI GIRL is terrible.  How could it be?  Look at that cast!  Tony (CANDY MAN) Todd, Mark (THE STAR WARS) Hamil, Michael (ALIENS) Biehn, Jeff (PLANET TERROR) Fahey, Danny (MACHETE...I guess) Trejo, Sonny (KILL BILL) Chiba and Atreyu from THE NEVERENDING STORY, Noah Hathaway all star or make cameos in this film.  I am just going to say that the makers of this film love Quentin Tarantino movies and eighties films.  Me too so I already know that I am going to like this movie. 

I am not going to tell you what the story is about.  All I can say is that it is about a bunch of bad guys sitting around a table eating sushi off some naked chick and then a bunch of stuff happens.  I will say this.  SUSHI GIRL is wonderfully directed and never ever gets boring.  Every single person on screen is interesting and unpredictable and given a moment to shine.  Most of the characters are villains and you never know with villains how they are going to react.  That is why I love gangster films so much.  A gangster can be funny and charming and then all of a sudden without a moments notice they go off and kill somebody like it was nothing at all.  This movie is full of people like that.  Mark Hamil has been transformed into the dandy but vicious and sly Crowe.  He is really the star of this show.  You can't take your eyes off of him.  Hopefully a role like this that expresses his acting range will open more doors to his career.  No longer will he be known as just Luke Skywalker.  The use of blood and gore is excellent as well.  The blood is dark and thick and it looks real and not C.G.I.  It perfectly amplifies the brutality and ugliness of these men and their actions.  The violence in this movie is heavy stuff.  It is not taken lightly. 

I have only two complaints.  The first is that the story's twists and turns are a little too predictable and I was hoping for a little bit more with the ending in terms of bringing a new element to the story.  There is a flashback to a robbery that the main characters did and they steal diamonds from Jeff Fahey's character and before they do he warns that they "don't know who they are stealing from".  Now usually when they say that the people that were stolen from show up and cause all kinds of shenanigans but in this movie they don't so I was a little disappointed with that.  Also I didn't like how little screen time Michael Biehn has in this movie.  Basically he shows up and says "Hi, my name is Michael Biehn BANG BANG!  Oh, shoot I'm dead".  Same thing with Danny Trejo but he says something a little different.  "Hello, I am Danny Trejo.  Oh, crap I am being strangled to death and now I am dead.  Did you notice I pulled out a machete before I died to make reference to the movie I am in MACHETE?".  It is like the whole movie is like RESERVOIR DOGS meets PLANET TERROR with a dash of KILL BILL.  I am not sure how I feel about a movie that makes references to other movies that make references to other movies.

SUSHI GIRL starts off like one kind of movie and ends as another.  I thought that was really cool even though you can see it coming.  Still SUSHI GIRL was excellent and I did appreciate the inspired casting and the reference on the van to THE NEVERENDING STORY.

You know what they should do?  They should make a fourth BATMAN movie that takes place a decade into the future in the Nolan universe and have Mark Hamil play Joker.  I think it would work.  He is probably the only guy who could come close to matching Heathe Ledger's devious and demented performance.  In fact I think Hamil would do better and be even more memorable.  I guess that can't happen though.  He has to go out and make more crappy THE STAR WARS movies.  Sigh...


Jason