Punisher 2

[megamania]

Daredevil wakes up shortly thereafter to find himself chained to a pillar with a revolver in his hand and the Punisher nearby getting ready to snipe the mafia scumbag. And the following exchange takes place...

Daredevil: "What is this?"
Punisher: "One bullet. One Shot. One chance to stop me from killing Dino Gnucci. It's time for that choice you were telling me about.
"You can't break loose in time. You haven't the space to throw the gun, maybe knock me off my aim.
"I've got my back to you. I'm wearing kevlar. It's got to be a headshot."
Daredevil: "Now wait a minute --"
Punisher: "If you don't shoot you've got a death on your conscience. A death you could have prevented.
"If you do shoot, you're a killer."
Daredevil: "What kind of choice is that?"
Punisher: "The one I make every time I pull the trigger. The one I'm making right now."

It was an awesome scene.

Frank Miller is an AWESOME writer. I wish he would stay in comics vs the hollywood scene which he "says" he hates but with the Robocops and Sin Citys under his belt I don't see him leaving.

 

[Klaus]

This wasn;t Frank Miller, this was Garth Ennis, IIRC.

And Daredevil could've tried to shoot Frank on the back of the knee, effectivelly blowing off his leg and ending the Punisher's career. Even if Daredevil shot Frank straight on the back, Frank would've moved with the shot's impact, throwing him off-balance and ruining his aim. Or Daredevil could've tried to fire up, alerting the target's security (surely he had some, for Frank to snipe him from a building) and taking away Frank's window of opportunity.

 

[Felon]

This wasn;t Frank Miller, this was Garth Ennis, IIRC. And Daredevil could've tried to shoot Frank on the back of the knee, effectivelly blowing off his leg and ending the Punisher's career. Even if Daredevil shot Frank straight on the back, Frank would've moved with the shot's impact, throwing him off-balance and ruining his aim. Or Daredevil could've tried to fire up, alerting the target's security (surely he had some, for Frank to snipe him from a building) and taking away Frank's window of opportunity.

Yep, there were a dozen different ways for Daredevil to foil Castle, and DD certainly would have figured one of them out had Ennis given the character the amount of brains he actually possesses. All in all, it is a pretty lame scene IMO. I enjoyed Ennis' run on Punisher, along with Preacher and Hellraiser, but if you read enough of his stuff and you start to realize that his writing style makes the main character look cool by providing him with conveniently stupid straw-man opponents.

That's particularly true in his Punisher run, where he portrays guys like Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Wolverine as inept clowns that Castle just toys with. OK, granted Spidey's not a real hard-boiled character and he's often portrayed as a goofball, but Wolverine has been a soldier and assassin a lot longer than Castle, and Daredevil has been through hell and back enough times that characterizing him as some sappy pollyanna whose personal beiliefs are just shallow rhetoric is selling him very short. I think Frank Miller would be among the first to agree with that.

 

[Dark Jezter]

And Daredevil could've tried to shoot Frank on the back of the knee, effectivelly blowing off his leg and ending the Punisher's career.

Except Punisher was crouching, and the back of his knee wasn't visible to Daredevil, not to mention that aiming a pistol one-handed at an awkward angle, hitting a head is going to be difficult, and a knee is an even smaller target.

Even if Daredevil shot Frank straight on the back, Frank would've moved with the shot's impact, throwing him off-balance and ruining his aim.

That option is dependant on Daredevil knowing right when Punisher is about to take the shot. It wasn't like Punisher was narrating... "Okay, he's getting out of his car right now, I'll be taking the shot in 3... 2... 1..."

Or Daredevil could've tried to fire up, alerting the target's security (surely he had some, for Frank to snipe him from a building) and taking away Frank's window of opportunity.

At a range of six hundred meters, combined with the sound of a rainstorm and regular NYC background noise, the report of the revolver going off is going to be pretty difficult to hear. Even if it's a hand cannon, like Dirty Harry's .44 magnum (which is probably doubtful, because kevlar isn't going to stop a .44 magnum round at a range that close).

Punisher did have a suppressor on his rifle, which he explains was to conceal his own position so he could be long gone before the people looking for the sniper find the origin of the shot, but he probably could have gotten away with it anyway.

 

[Felon]

And doesn't the gun turn out to be empty? DD would've at the very least been able to tell through at least one of his senses--touch, hearing, radar, take your pick--as he cocked the gun that the cylinder wasn't loaded.

Bottom line, the scene would have played out very differently had Ennis been writing that scene for a Daredevil comic book instead. He would've been the cool guy and Castle would have been the straw man chump.

 

[Rel]

And doesn't the gun turn out to be empty? DD would've at the very least been able to tell through at least one of his senses--touch, hearing, radar, take your pick--that the cylinder he was chambering wasn't loaded.

Bottom line, the scene would have played out very differently had Ennis been writing that scene for a Daredevil comic book instead. He would've been the cool guy and Castle would have been the straw man chump.

The explanation offered by Dark Jezter was that the firing pin had been removed. DD better have hella good sonar to pick up on that.

 

[Felon]

Well, he does indeed have "hella" good senses, though that is probably beyond him. But again, debating the details of every possible tactic that DD could've used to stop Castle would get pretty exhaustive. Having Castle manufacture a scenario where he is totally in control and forces Daredevil to either kill him or allow him to kill doesn't give Matt Murdock much credit. He's the Man Without Fear, but Ennis would have him be the Man Without Brains...or Balls.

Like I said, I enjoy his books a lot, but a writer is kind of like a magician. No matter how much you like the magic act, if you keep seeing the same ol' tricks, you're going to start to see through the illusion. That's kind of where I got towards the end of his Punisher run.

 

[Felon]

The "honky-tonk" guy was, afaik, created for the film. That character's name was Henry Heck (I think). I just refer to him as "Johnny Cash". Ironically enough, in an interview with the director, he mentions that they actor actually did portray Johnny Cash in a biopic.

Heck was my favorite character in the film. He had the perfect balance of a comic book villain that could exist in the real world.

Harry Heck was his name, and he was a minor character from the "Welcome Back, Frank" series. I believe it was the first issue. A trio of elite assassins are hired to deal with Castle. They decide to meet and discuss the job in the middle of a pub, where Castle sits with his back to them at a table about a meter or so away and eavesdrops on the conversation. Over the course of three pages or so, he trails them individually and kills them each off in a succession of fairly unceremonious ambushes. In Heck's case, Castle drives up next to him and empties an uzi into him. Needless to say, the movie actually did a better job by deviating from the comic.

The adaptation is really screwy in a lot of places. I suspect a lot of folks who didn't read the comic were a little confused. They may have trouble buying that the character Joan is a supermodel working a minimum-wage job, and probably a few folks wondered why the mobsters show up and torture Dave, then leave him and Bumpo alive while a single killer is left standing around in the hall to deal with Castle. Then there's the whole tortureless interrogation scene with the popsicle that kinda fell flat (it was effective in the comic because the reader couldn't tell it was a popsicle instead of a red-hot poker).

 

[Villano]

That's particularly true in his Punisher run, where he portrays guys like Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Wolverine as inept clowns that Castle just toys with. OK, granted Spidey's not a real hard-boiled character and he's often portrayed as a goofball, but Wolverine has been a soldier and assassin a lot longer than Castle, and Daredevil has been through and hell and back enough times that characterizing him as some sappy pollyanna whose personal beiliefs are just shallow rhetoric is selling him very short. I think Frank Miller would be among the first to agree with that.

I completely agree. It kind of reminds me of Grant Morrison explaining how Batman could beat every single one of the JLA. It seems like an overcompensation to make the human character cool. You can make a character cool without resorting to "he can beat up cool characters, so that makes him cooler" or "see, these cool characters look like dorks next to him because he's sooo much cooler".

I like the Punisher, but I prefer the old school version (80s - early 90s).

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

Any hopes for P2?

All kinds but I really liked the movie minus one small part.

I'm not sure why everyone was so dispointed in the first... It was closer to Frank Castle in the book than Dolp version.