Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Villano" data-source="post: 1573512" data-attributes="member: 505">The IMDB has it rated at a 6.5.  I'd say that's about accurate.  One of the TV critics described it as having a pretty good movie burried somewhere in it.  I'd say that's pretty accurate, too.The two biggest problems with the film are the budget and the fact that it feels as if someone sewed 2 separate scripts together.  There's the whole "getting revenge for killing my family" story mixed with an adaption of the comic maxi-series Welcome Back, Frank, by Garth Ennis.   The problem is that Welcome Back, Frank was really a black comedy (and the only parts of it they took were the "kooky" neighbors and The Russian).  I enjoyed the revenge tale.  I actually liked that he set up Saint to kill the people he loved most instead of just shooting him.  And the climactic shootout was good, too.  However, anything involving the neighbors was really terrible.  The film changed everything about them (although, in fairness, they weren't that great to begin with).On the downside, the music was hamfisted and there were some weird decisions made (like having all the bad guys wearing black all the time  :\ ).  Plus, it was one of those movie worlds in which there are no cops (or firemen or anything else).  Also, someone decided it would be a good idea to intercut the big fight between the Russian and the Punisher with the kooky neighbors dancing around and singing opera.  I'm assuming they were going for a Hitchcock-like irony by showing a life or death struggle occuring while something lighthearted is going on in another room.  The problem is the kooky neighbors are all terrible.  You really don't like or care about them (especially Mr. Bumpo, who's just annoying).  Plus, Hitch would have had, say, a little girl unknowingly enjoying her birthday party while her father is being murdered in the next room by a hitman disguised as a party clown.   It would have been a "thriller" moment, not an action scene.  Cutting away from it really disrupts the flow of the fight.  Overall, for my enjoyment, I gave it a 7 on the IMDB.  I'll pick it up on DVD and just fastforward through the neighbor scenes.I've heard that the film did well enough that a sequel is planned.  Provided that they learn their lessons from this film, I'll be looking forward to it.</blockquote>

Verification