I like the Punisher but I don't think a lot of people get the character as he started out in the 80's. He has been changed so many times since that he has a lost of the edge he once had.
My vision of the Punisher has always been of a ruthless and unstoppable vigilante.
He hunts down and kills criminals. He doesn't announce his presence, or try to instill fear in the mooks ala Batman. He just kills them in the most efficient and covert way as possible so as to not attract attention himself. He then moves on the next group of thugs, and then the next. He doesn't care about glory, or press, or making a statement. He is more like a force of nature than a man. Part of what made the Punisher an interesting character for me was his inhumanity. His cold brutality and ruthless sense of justice.
Both the original Punisher and the new Punisher films both missed the mark. They fell into the cliched action movie formula. Man on Fire's Denzel Washington or the main character in Tom Clancy's Without Remorse were much closer to who the Punisher really is my mind. The Punisher doesn't live in an apartment complex and make friends with the locals. He doesn't stick Daredevil in a moral dilemma.
He doesn't care about Daredevil, or what he thinks. Daredevil is not a criminal so he does not deserve death in the Punisher's worldview, so the Punisher would not kill him. Merely knock him out to get him out of the way, then go snipe his target and then leave.
He wouldn't waste his time trying to frame Howard Saint's family or ruin his life. The real Punisher doesn't care about such things. Saint is a dangerous crime lord. Therefore, he dies and so does anything or anyone that gets in Castle's way. Brutally and efficiently. That's all there is to it.
He would never harm an innocent but nor does he go out of his way to help them. He helps people if the opportunity presents itself, and it won't take him from his path. But otherwise he is not about saving people. He is more focused on destroying evil than in supporting good. He is the ultimate anti-hero.
If they made a real movie about the real Punisher it would be great film. A gritty psychological drama about how a loving family man who loses his family to criminals also loses his humanity in the process. About how his zeal and desire to receive a justice denied him by an inefficient and ineffective legal system turns him into an unstoppable inhuman killer bent on punishing the guilty for their crimes.
