Excellently Executed With A Few Exceptions

The Punisher: One Last Kill

Disney

It was easy to miss the fact that the long-promised The Punisher: One Last Kill “special presentation” finally arrived on Disney Plus last night, as it got little fanfare and feels a bit like an afterthought. Fans were disappointed to see this wasn’t even going to be close to movie-length, more around 50 minutes, the length of a single episode of most of the Netflix/Disney Plus shows.

But it works. The Punisher: One Last Kill works as a mental shift for Frank Castle, who has reached where the sidewalk ends when it comes to avenging his family after two full seasons of his own show and now some “wrap-up” kills of the Gnucci crime family, with one important exception. (Spoilers follow)

That would be Ma Gnucci, who watched her entire family butchered by Frank, and now wants to play a game with him that involves putting his apartment complex and the surrounding city blocks under siege, putting a bounty on his head so every criminal is attempting to hunt him down at once. It’s a John Wick plotline with a lot more deep-throated yelling. There are also significant Dredd and The Raid vibes here, but rather than a special forces team or super cop, we have an angry man and about 50 different scavenged weapons.

The Ma Gnucci set-up is a little plot-devicey. She has Frank surrounded as she announces this big plan to him when she could have had her security shoot him in the knees right there and torture him endlessly. Sending a bunch of criminals and thugs, no matter how many there are, after the literal Punisher feels like one of those James Bond scenes where he’s strapped to a table with a laser slowly crawling toward his crotch instead of the bad guy just sticking a knife in his brain. I get that the idea is to put him through a “hunt” like her family was hunted, but Frank, of course, kills about 50 people, added to the 500 people he’s probably already killed to this point. I think the worst injuries he even suffers are a bullet graze on his arm and a screwdriver stabbed into his shoulder. In Punisher terms, that’s pretty much escaping with a scratch.

There is one absolutely ridiculous moment that has been clipped and passed around as a meme this morning, a stunt where Frank is meant to fly off a roof and land on a cushiony vent system he craters to break his fall. But for whatever reason, the show decided to use CGI to ragdoll his body on that landing in a way that looks like a PS3 game. For a project so intent on using stunt work and choreography, it’s a thoroughly bizarre moment that I genuinely believe Disney should cut from the existing version of the special.

I thought the overall arc worked well. We have seen PTSD Frank many, many times to this point, but here it felt like actual progression, as by the end, he’s forced to choose between one more instance of revenge and helping his neighbors not be murdered by mobs. Then, in the end, he’s patrolling the streets in full Punisher gear, executing criminals for hat snatching and dog murder. I don’t really agree with the criticism of him getting the “suit” in the last few minutes or so. Frank is still Frank, whether he’s got the skull on his chest or not, and just because the action frenzy took place with him wearing a hoodie, I mean, was he not The Punisher there? I don’t think that’s a fair accusation.

This serves as a good bridge of “what has Frank been up to” in some of the gaps between seasons of shows here, and this sets up what we’ve already seen teased in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, where Frank is patrolling the streets, attempting to blow up the same criminals Spidey is trying to web up. I doubt that will be more than a few-minute cameo, but still, it seems pretty clear that Marvel still has something in Bernthal’s Frank Castle, and they should stick with him for as long as he’ll play the role. And yes, from here, you can feel free to put him in the skull suit the whole time.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.