'The Punisher' (1989) Retrospective- Act 1.

by Dave Scrimgeour, Mike Nay & Kev McCluskey

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​New World Pictures (Australia)

In Association with Mace Neufelo and Simon Heath

presents a Robert Kamen production

of a Mark Goldblatt film

Dolph Lundgren

Louis Gossett Jr.

The Punisher

Starring Jeroen Krabbe

​Kim Miyori

Production design by Norma Moriceau

​Director of photography- Ian Baker

Edited by Tim Wellburn

Executive producer- Robert Guralnick

Written by Boaz Yakin and Robert Kamen

Co-producer- Su Armstrong

Produced by Robert Kamen

Directed by Mark Goldblatt

Based on the Marvel comics character

Distributed by New World International

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Dave
So here we go, Mike’s debut to We See The World In Ben-Day Dots.

​
Kev
Ha, ha!   Yeh.   At last, Mike’s debut to the We See The World Through Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key-Tinted Spectacles arm of Ben-Day Dots.


Mike
Welcome to our coverage of the obscure age of Marvel movies.


Dave
Exactly.


Kev
“The obscure age,” indeed.


Dave
One of the good ages of Marvel movies, I have to say.


Kev
Yes.


Mike
Yeah, but an age where all their movies went straight to video.


Kev
Ha, ha!  Yeh!


Dave
New World Pictures Australia, there you go.

(Australia)

Kev
Ha,ha!  Yeh.  That shows you the level we’re working on here.


Dave
This is quite interesting, this opening.  I love the music.  Do you think they were planning this for a TV series?  ‘Cause there’s almost a TV series feel to this.


Kev
It is like the opening to a TV series, isn’t it?


Dave
Yeah.  It’s got that dark, haunting music, which really sets-up the mood for the film though, doesn’t it?


Kev
Yep.


Dave
This is great, Al Capone’s just popped-up.


Kev
It’s got that little bit of a noir, and ‘Death Wish’ vibe as well.


Dave
Yeah.


Kev
A little bit of a ‘Dirty Harry,’ in there as well, maybe?  And a bit of Lalo Schiffrin, as well as that 70’s looking, lenticular aesthetic?


Dave
It does have a bit of that actually, yeah.


Kev
I suppose, it does have more of a 70’s thriller feel to it, in some ways, doesn’t it?


Dave
Yeah.


Mike
I have to admit, the opening here looks like some kind of a documentary on crime throughout the ages, to be honest.


Kev
Because it’s much more of a grounded character, they were maybe going for more of a documentary look then.


Dave
And it’s got that dramatic music to it.  Dennis Dreich.  His music isn’t dreich anyway.


Kev
Ha, ha!  Very good.


Dave
I like this opening.


Kev
Me too, man.  It’s really stylised with its use of primary colours.

It's not 'Tales Of The Unexpected' iconic, but it'll do in an emergency. Okay?

Dave
It’s classic.  It’s got a bit of that 80’s kind-of thing going on as well.  When they were making films like that.


Kev
Before every opening to a Marvel film became so computer generated.


Dave
And there were actually opening credits in movies.


Kev
Yeh, right enough, because you’ve said before how you feel they just go straight into things now.


Dave
Yeah, it feels a bit clumsy these days.  This is where that deleted scene would have come in.


Mike
Oh yeah.


Kev
Right, okay, so it was right at the start, yeah?


Dave
Yeah, yeah.


Mike
Fifteen pages into the official movie adaptation.


Kev
How many pages does that adaptation have altogether then?


Mike
I’m not too sure.  I’ll have to see if I’ve even still got it.  It’s probably hidden somewhere in my flat.


Kev
Punisher.  Question mark.

Fake news!

Dave
Just look for a man with a question mark for a face and you’ll find him.  This was filmed in Sydney too.


Kev
Yeh.  For tax purposes, I bet.  I've read that it’s cheaper to film there apparently.


Dave
This is not America, Moretti.  It’s Australia.


Kev
Ha, ha!  I like the way he says “Punisher” there.  The way he really spits out the "P."


Dave
I love this extra in the background, he’s brilliant.  This guy here.

I thought I was auditioning for 'Byker Grove,' next thing you know I'm being flown to Australia for this.

Mike
Ha, ha!


Kev
Which camera am I supposed to be looking at?


Dave
Ha,ha.


Kev
The opening, with the news and stuff, reminds me a little bit of ‘Robocop.’  And Frank Miller was using that technique, the use of rolling news and media coverage, a lot in comics at the time as well, with ‘The Dark Knight Returns,’ for example.


Dave
Ah, yes.  It is a bit like ‘Robocop,’ yeah.  See, they’ll not recognise Frank here, because they’ll not see a man with question mark on his face.


Kev
Yeh, exactly, they’re looking for the man with the question face.


Dave
Yep.  The face and the question mark.


Mike
Ha, ha!


Dave
I like how they don’t waste any time, they just get straight into the story.


Kev
Yeh.  You’ve kind-of said before that you think the lack of budget in these films often means that they’re so much more economical with the storytelling and that they just rattle through it.


Dave
Yeah,  This is like ‘Enter the Dragon,’ isn’t it?

"Even the greatest stars dislike themselves in the looking glass."

Kev
With the mirrors, yeh right enough.  This bit kind-of reminds me of that scene in ‘Leon’ as well, when he takes those guys out in that house as well.


Dave
Yeah.


Kev
But they’re not messing around with the violence.  Right away it’s knife in the heart, sort-of thing.


Dave
No, they’re not.


Mike
Have either of you ever seen ‘The Punisher’ Playstation 2 game?


Kev
I haven't, no.


Mike
It’s really interesting.  It’s based on one of the Garth Ennis comic books, and it’s just a typical run-and-gun, shoot ‘em up type of game, but you get special torture and interrogation scenes, for information, kind-of thing.


Kev
Is it based on the ‘Welcome Back, Frank’ stuff, yeh?


Mike
Yeah.  Here we are, the only skulls you see in the movie.

Oooooh! Spooky!

Kev
Is that the only skulls, yeh?  The ones on the knives?


Mike
Yeah.  And that’s a big mistake.  Without his skull on the shirt, it just feels like another action movie to me.


Dave
And that’s his logo.  His symbol, isn’t it?


Kev
Yeh.  All they needed to do was put the skull on that black undershirt.


Mike
And it’s not like it would’ve cost that much more in terms of the budget, just to do that.


Kev
No, that's true.  I do like this shot going through the sewers though, with the voiceover, that’s nice.


Dave
Yeah.


Kev
Sewers were big at this time though, what with the Turtles and everything as well.


Mike
Does that explain why there are so many ninjas in it as well?


Kev
It could do.  And here’s a shot of Dolph’s lovely bum.

"Ho! Jeez, look at the butt on that!" "Yeah. He must work-out."

​Dave
Dolph’s looking a bit stoned.


Kev
Yeh, he is.


Mike
I was thinking that too.

"I'm a negative creep, and I'm stoned."

Dave
Now this bit, with the flashback, this was originally in the opening.  A lot of this stuff here was the stuff that was taken out.  So they’ve just compressed it down.  This is basically the origin here.


Mike
And they’ve decided to omit Frank’s military background as well.


Kev
Yeh, that’s true.  They’ve not touched on that at all, have they?  I do think that Dolph does the haunted look very well.  He actually looks like a man who has had the life drained out of him.


Dave
He does actually.  I thought that as well.


Kev
I’ve always thought that, despite the action hero films that he was doing at the time, Dolph Lundgren’s got really soft eyes.  They’re quite good for him looking like a wounded animal, y’know what I mean?  He looks wounded and haunted, I think.


Dave
Yeah.


Mike
At this time, of these more obscure Marvel movies, Dolph Lundgren was probably the biggest star they had.


Kev
Right enough, yeh.  ‘Cause when you think of it, ‘Captain America’ and ‘Fantastic Four’ were around about this sort of time, weren’t they?  Yeh, you’re right, Mike, Lundgren was certainly their biggest star, ‘cause he was on the rise at this point as well.


Dave
Yeah, he was on the up, wasn’t he?


Kev
And Louis Gossett Jr. was no slouch at this point in time either, really.  He was an Oscar winner for crying out loud.


Dave
No, he was in a lot of films, wasn’t he?


Kev
Yeh, he was.  He's also just recently shown-up in ‘The Watchmen’ this past year as well.

​
Dave
Has he?


Kev
Yeh.  Comic book stuff has been good to these guys.


Mike
Hmm.  Yeah, I suppose it has.


​Dave
This character here, Jake’s new partner, she was in the opening scene as well.  She was the undercover cop, posing as the hooker.

Never mind Evans and Jordan, Everhard was pulling double Marvel duty before it was cool. And in the same year.

Kev
Ah, right.


Mike
Now what was her name?  She was in ‘Robocop,’ wasn’t she? 


Dave
No, that was Nancy Allen.  


Kev
She looks quite similar to Nancy Allen though.


Dave
And she has the same first name.  This is Nancy Everhard.


Mike
Oh, wait a sec, I recognise her now, from ‘The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk.’  


Dave
Was she in that?


Mike
I think it is her, yeah.  She played Matt Murdock’s partner.


Dave
Ah, right.  Okay.


Kev
Louis Gossett Jr, making a bald head look good on black men in ‘89.  Him and Michael Jordan.  He looks great.  Just looking at this now, the fashion that Louis Gossett Jr. is rocking here, is kind-of back in vogue.  It doesn’t look 30 years old now, I don’t think.  I kind-of looks quite contemporary.  If you saw someone dressed like that today, in 2020, you wouldn’t think anything of it.  Then again, my "fashion sense," if you could even call it that, has barely evolved since 1995.  So what do I know?

I won an Oscar once.

​Dave
That’s it, yeah.  Some of the ‘80’s fashion hasn’t dated quite as badly as others, has it?


Kev
No.  Speaking of Michael Jordan, there’s a guy in a Jordan shirt.

'The First Dance.'

Dave
There’s another few dodgy extras.  That don’t even know why they are there.


Kev
No, some of them look a bit lost, don't they?


Dave
Confused.com/extras.


Mike
Ha, ha!


Kev
Where is it that Gianni and Tommy Franco have supposed to have been?  Where have they come back from?


Dave
The old country.


Kev
Ah, right.  Of course.  Why would they have gone anywhere else?


Dave
This is another plot point that’s made a bigger deal of in that deleted scene that was originally at the start of the movie.  It’s made clear that Franco flees to Italy to escape Frank.  It’s interesting watching films of a certain age where there are no mobile phones or anything, so everything is one-to-one conversations.


Kev
Yep.  And mobile phones are such a plot point in things now as well.  Because everybody has one, it becomes so hard to disconnect characters from each other.


Mike
We did have those brick ones back then, the ones you see in ‘American Psycho’ and things, people used them.


Kev
Yeh.


Dave
They were big with the yuppies, weren’t they?  They were massive.


Kev
That’s true, yeh.  Hardly anybody had them.


Dave
They would’ve cost a fortune, those ones.


Kev
Yeh, they were expensive.  Well, so I would’ve thought.  It’s not like I could’ve ever afforded one.  I wasn’t Zack Morris, or anything.  Who is this actor playing Franco?  What’s his name?

Jerome looks a little bit put out. You could even say he looks a bit crabby. Oooh, tough crowd.

Dave
Jerome Krabbe.  He’s been in a lot of things.


Kev
Yeh, I recognise him from other stuff.  There’s nothing over the top in this, is there?  It’s just a gangster story really, isn’t it?


Dave
Yeah, it’s a pretty straightforward film, isn’t it?


Mike
And here we have our Micro stand-in.

I guess you could say that Shake was thrown out of that pub because he was Bard. That's it from me, goodnight.

Kev
True.


Dave
That’s what I was thinking as well, yeah.


Kev
Nice “thespian” gag, there.


Dave
That bartender has a great face, doesn’t he?

"All the features, jostling for position. The eyes screaming out..... The nose..... Very visually noisy, your face."

Kev
Yeh.  It’s a brilliant face.  All rectangular eyes, and "on fleek" eyebrows too.


Dave
This scene here got used a lot as a clip.


Kev
Yeh.


Dave
Was this not the one they used on 'Film ‘90' with Barry Norman?


Mike
It is, yeah.  I remember this being on there.


Kev
Good balance to keep that bottle standing upright here.


Dave
Yeah, The Punisher’s a good driver.  He managed not to spill that bottle.  I wonder how many takes it took them to get that right.


Kev
That bottle is glued to that little truck.


Dave
Ha, ha!  Yeah, it’s probably been glued down.

After the relatively poor box office performance of 'The Last Knight,' Optimus Prime fell on hard times.

Mike
What is it with The Punisher and strong bottles of whiskey?  Do you remember that ‘Dirty Laundry’ bootleg, where he was beating up all those criminals with a bottle of JD, and it wouldn’t break?


Kev
No, it didn’t want to break at all, dit it?


Dave
And even when he drops it.  I’d laugh if it broke then.


Kev
That’s kind-of your big reveal for Punisher, isn’t it?  That tracking-up shot.


Dave
Lundgren’s actually incredibly well cast.


Kev
I think so, man, yeh.


Mike
He does look the part.  He’s got the hair, he’s got the physique, he’s got the height.


Kev
The height as well!  Yeh, you’re right, Mike.  He’s got the stature for Frank Castle, doesn’t he?


Dave
Yeah, ‘cause he’s supposed to be this big, imposing guy.


Mike
And he does look like a young Punisher.  ‘Cause when The Punisher came out in the 70s, he was a Vietnam vet, which at the time, wasn’t that long ago.  Then, in later years, in the comics they aged him quite a bit, to the point where nowadays they’re making him a Gulf War vet.

See? Not a question mark.

Dave
I suppose they’ve got to keep it current.


Kev
Were they not ageing him in real time at once point?  LIke they've done with Judge Dredd?


Mike
Yeah.


Kev
And then they realised that it was getting to the point where he was going to be in his 60s or 70s.


Dave
Yeah.


Kev
What’s this character’s name again?


Dave
Shake.


Kev
I like this guy.  He’s just a bit odd.


Dave
Yeah, he’s a good character.  That’s Mel Gibson’s brother, Donal, here.

No, Mel, I'm not bailing you out again. You're on your own this time, "Sugar Tits!"

Kev
Is it?  Ha, ha!  That’s brilliant.


Dave
He looks like Mel, doesn’t he?


Kev
He does a bit actually, now that you mention it.


Dave
Was there any indication that he WASN’T in the military in this?  It’s never referenced, is it?


Mike
No.  I remember, in the comic adaptation, he was only referred to as being a police officer.  Which, I suppose, a lot of military vets would probably find a job in the police after their service.


Kev
Yeh, that’s true.


Dave
This is a good set-piece.


Kev
Yeh.


Dave
I think some of this got spliced for the cinema.


Kev
It’s quite “big” considering the budget for this film wasn’t massive, isn’t it?


Dave
Yeah, they spliced a lot of this.  I think they had to.


Kev
Throat slitting with the knife there.


Dave
It was a lot of this stuff that was spliced.


Mike
They wouldn’t get away with that “F” bomb nowadays.


Kev
No, you definitely wouldn’t.  You’re right though, Mike, a lot of this kind of stuff here, all you need to do is just put the skull on that undershirt and it’s exactly what it needs to be.


Mike
Yeah, it would be perfect.


Kev
Especially for ‘89/’90, 'cause as a character, The Punisher had only had his own, regular, monthly comic book series for two or three years.

Dolph's "O" face.

​Mike
Yeah.


Dave
There’s A LOT of this that has been spliced.  Obviously the censors must’ve made them cut bits out.


Kev
Yeh.  Was there ANY other violent, R-rated comic book films at this point?


Dave
No.  I think this was kind-of it.


Kev
I know you’d had ‘Fritz: The Cat,’ or something like that, but was this the first live action R-rated one?  This is good, this zip-wire bit.  I like that.


Dave
Yeah, it’s good, isn’t it?  It’s a cracking little set piece, actually.


Kev
And it always helps when you have someone like Lundgren, who is actually athletic.  He can obviously do the martial arts stuff because that was his background, but he can also do all the running and the jumping and stuff like that.


Dave
And he was in the army when he was younger as well.


Kev
Was he?


Dave
Yeah, so he was probably familiar with weapons as well.  He got clipped here though, didn’t he?  She doesn’t know how to get her snorkel off, that’s why she’s kept it on.  It’s stuck to her, she can’t get it off.


Kev
Yeh, she’s the big bad reveal, so she has to keep hers on for an extra little bit, for dramatic effect.


Dave
I like how it quickly jumps from scene to scene.  There’s no wasted time with the storytelling.  Every scene is relevant.


Kev
Yep, every scene is moving the story forward.


Dave
This is the ‘Rambo’ scene coming up.


Mike
Hot knife to the wound.


Dave
Cauterise it, yeah.

Through butter.

Kev
I suppose, things like ‘Rambo’ and stuff are still relatively current at this point.  ‘Cause what are you, three deep into the ‘Rambo’ series by this time?


Dave
Yeah, there were three ‘Rambo’ films by this point.


Kev
All these corporate buildings look the same, don’t they?  Even though this is not New York that they’ve filmed this in, it could be anywhere.  Were the Yakuza used much in American films at this point?  I know ‘Rising Sun’ featured them.


Dave
‘Rising Sun’ wasn’t until ‘93.  There had been a couple.  Robert Mitchum did ‘The Yakuza’ in the 70s.  ‘Black Rain’ was ‘89.  I think ‘Black Rain’ came out after this actually.


Kev
That is a nice checked suit this guy is wearing here.  I like that.


Dave
That’s another nice tracking shot, with her going round the table.


Kev
And Jesus on the cross as well, for that Italian, Roman Catholic vibe.  You’re right, man, that tracking shot is good  It’s like a predator circling its prey, isn’t it?
​​​​

Social distancing rules, clearly not being adhered to by the Mafia and the Yakuza.

(D), (M) & (K)

​Next: Frank steals a bus full of kids.