"Sometimes, I'd like to get my hands on God."

In the scene that reveals that Frank Castle AKA The Punisher (Ray Weatherstone) once studied in a Catholic seminary, we see the vision that has become twisted and darkened by the death of his family and the one-man war against evil that he has undertaken. In this third attempt at establishing a line of Punisher movies for the contemporary age, Weatherstone tries to do better than Dolph Lundgren and Thomas Jane. As always, The Punisher has an assortment of peripheral "allies" but in the end, he stands alone.

Gratuitous violence and ridiculous deaths riddle the latest installment, but the scenes, the cinematography, etc. are superior to the previous two at every turn. Not surprisingly, the use of lesser actors, and not such commodities as John Travolta, serve this movie better, as less is expected. You still get about the same thing that you might otherwise, bad acting and stupid dialogue, but the movie ends up looking rosier than the others.

I'm not a Punisher expert, but this movie does seems to develop the "soul" of Frank Castle more than the others before it did. Castle's accidental shooting of a Federal agent forces him to reflect on the dark road that he has gone down, and the way that he never meant for the "collaterals" to get hurt. He's apologetic, remorseful, and even pushes himself to the point where he offers the widow the opportunity to kill him. Thankfully, the daughter intervenes (and the sanctity of childhood is established within the movie).

Unlike with Bryan Mills in Taken, I won't make the argument that Castle is a Christ figure. He does accomplish the mission that others cannot, and he eradicates every evil that he finds, but the pleasure he takes in the act of violence, and the death of others, is not redeemable in the least. No, the Punisher ends up being somehow redeemable because the evil he faces is despicable. Dominic West's Jigsaw and Jigsaw's brother, Loony Bin Jim (Doug Hutchinson), are two of the sickest, most repulsive villains to muddy a comic book film. Their insanity rivals the darkest comic versions of The Joker, but make the movie versions look like the Easter Bunny.

In the end, Punisher fans will love this, those seeking a violent getaway where the evil are punished well too, and those who are more squeamish and less vindictive will wonder how this could have ever been made a movie. Just like the evil in the movie, apparently opinions are relative, too.