January 14, 2025 • 48 mins
On this episode of Movie Smash!, we discuss 2004's The Punisher directed by Jonathan Hensleigh and starring Thomas Jane, John Travolta, Samantha Mathis. The film Frank Castle's family is killed by a corrupt businessman Saint. Frank becomes the Punisher and delivers punishment to those that have harmed him.
Hosts: Christopher Roberts, Fergel Amayo, Jeremy Parmentier
Edited By: Christopher Roberts
Produced By: Off Panel Creations, LLC
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Okay everybody, it's Michael E. Cullen II.
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Some of us cry a lot and others murder dozens of people.
We destroyed the entire house for this.
That feels completely evil.
You and I must have watched a different movie.
(01:10):
And I'm shocked that you guys disagree with me, by the way.
Quote, the Russian sucks.
Jeremy from Movie Smash.
Hello and welcome to Movie Smash.
Hello and welcome to Movie Smash,
the show where we dive headfirst into the Kankba movies outside the MCU.
(01:32):
If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us.
If you've been here before, you know the drill.
Each episode, we're going to smash a movie who sourced materials from a graphic novel or comic.
Is it worth revisiting?
Should it be forgotten?
Let's find out.
This is Movie Smash.
I'm one of your hosts, Chris Roberts.
I'm the founder of All Panel Creations.
With me today, I have Jeremy Parmiteer.
Hey, this is Jeremy Parmiteer, also the RetroVaniacs podcast,
(01:53):
and the Subtastics recently signed to Allegedly Record.
Wow, that's news to everybody.
That is news. Congratulations, man.
And FurgulaMile.
This is FurgulaMile.
We get nerds on just loving and talking to folks and getting ready to bring the store back.
I'm excited about that opportunity.
We're looking forward to doing that in the next year or so.
And that's our opportunity today.
(02:15):
So let's get into this movie.
I love this movie.
All right.
Our movie tonight is 2004's The Punisher starring Thomas Jane,
John Travolta, and Samantha Mathis, directed by Jonathan Hensley.
They thought they murdered me.
They were wrong.
(02:35):
They were dead wrong.
Batman must die.
Don't let your memories kill you.
They can't kill me.
I'm already dead.
Thomas Jane, John Travolta.
Make Castle dead, whatever it takes, whatever it costs.
This is not revenge.
(03:00):
It's punishment.
So before we jump into the movie, guys, I just want to go over some comic book news.
Jason Momoa has been officially announced as the new Lobo for the new DCU.
Well, I'll tell you this.
They've been announcing a lot.
So there's been a lot of data coming out about these movies, especially from the James Gunn
sign, not only Jason Lobo for, and that's for Supergirl.
So that's the Supergirl Tomorrow movie.
(03:21):
That's going to be the main villain in that movie.
I think it's a great pick.
I mean, he looks just like Lobo.
I don't know a lot about Lobo, but he does look like Lobo.
I always thought of Lobo as more of like a medley guy, like a Lemmy for Motorhead type,
but I don't know anything about him.
I just know what he looks like.
And I think I've read a handful of pages over the years.
I'm not a big DC guy.
So all these other characters are bringing on, unless it's some of the mainstays.
(03:42):
I don't know them, but I'm learning about them and I'm enjoying it thoroughly.
And I'm sure I'll learn about more as we dive into some of the DC movies as we go through these.
He's pretty badass.
I only really know him as a side character for, you know, or a villain of the other movies.
For like a Justice League cartoon episode or something.
So, but he looks the part and he said he's been wanting to play it for some time.
It's just going to be kind of weird that he was Aquaman and now he's Lobo.
(04:05):
But no, I think we can also spin our sense of disbelief on that one.
Well, that's not really Aquaman.
So I think that will be an easy, forgetful character.
He's really, that was a parody of Aquaman.
Aquaman is a much better character than what was shown in that movie.
But for Lobo, absolutely.
Lobo is a great character.
He's got a snarky attitude.
(04:26):
He's a Cezarnian.
He's actually as strong as Superman.
So it'll be a really interesting character.
And he's just a, he travels with a space dolphin.
That's his best friend is a space dolphin.
Which isn't that pretty much the best friend of Aquaman, a space dolphin?
I think Aquaman just had fishes.
Yeah, he talks to fishes from what I understand.
So anyway, let's talk about tonight's movie, The Punisher.
Were you guys familiar with The Punisher as a character before the first time you saw this movie?
(04:49):
I'm staring at the first issue.
I'm staring at the first issue on my wall.
Yeah, I'm definitely familiar with Frank Castle.
Yeah, I also knew the character.
Again, as I've mentioned, every time we do one of these like kind of darker Marvel movies,
those are my brother's comics more than mine.
I was more of the classic superheroes and he had all these.
So I knew about Punisher.
I don't think I've ever read like a standard Punisher book, only like short mini series.
(05:12):
He's hard for me to see as a character I want to like.
He's kind of that good gray area where he could be good.
He could be bad like Catwoman.
You don't really know.
I mean, he doesn't have skills like Catwoman, but you know what I mean, like that kind of character.
So as a main book, main character in a movie, we'll see if I like it or not.
But I don't really like the comics where he's the main character.
Now I'm visiting Catwoman with a massive machine gun taking him off him.
(05:36):
Which Catwoman?
Would it be Selina Kyle Catwoman, the one that was in the Batman movie,
or will it be the Halle Berry Catwoman?
Because her with the machine gun, that would be rather weird to just kind of pick.
That would, that screws the whole image up.
I really was not too familiar with the Punisher when this movie came out.
That seemed wasn't really at my alley that my sort of hero, but no, that was then.
Let's talk about now.
So was, I assume this was not your first viewing guys, was this?
(05:58):
No, no, I've memorized most of this movie.
I've seen this movie hundreds.
I've seen all of the Punishers, including the Dolph London one.
That's the only one I'd see.
This is the first time I've seen this version of the Punisher.
Which is funny.
I've seen this movie several times, but for whatever reason, I always get confused with
Swordfish that came out around the same time.
Such a cool movie though.
(06:19):
That was such a cool movie.
I don't understand how you can confuse it too.
Cause he was the Swordfish.
I mean, I don't like the little, the little Fu Manchu thing he's got in his beard,
but I think he's very cool bad guy in that movie.
Well, what happens, I was getting ready for our podcast today and I was thinking about
like who was in the movie.
I'm typing up the show notes and I typed Halle Berry in there.
I'm like, wait, no, she's not in this movie though.
(06:40):
Because yeah, again, the Swordfish.
So Fergal, why don't you give us a little bit of history about who the Punisher is?
Punisher is Frank Castle.
One of the most, one of the, I don't know, let's call it top 20 most valuable comic books.
Maybe top 25 is Amazing Spider-Man 129, first appearance of Frank Castle.
Created by Jerry Conway, drawn by none other than John Romita Sr.
(07:03):
And also Ross Andrew.
And he's just, he's got, as Heidi had four separate books going on,
he's like a one man wage war.
His wife and son, his wife and child get killed by the mob.
And he just goes on a one man black and white war.
He's been kind of retconned.
He's got a lot of different versions of him.
He's very well, like kind of the Batman, if you will.
So he's definitely got some things going on for himself.
(07:25):
And it's a pretty sweet comic.
It's actually one of the top, I mean, Punisher is one of the top kind of like,
let's call it top 30, top 40 characters that focus talk about when they talk about characters.
He's had a lot of iterations on TV and movie.
Wasn't there a recent reiteration of the characters?
Something about like some sort of Asian influence to it, if I remember correctly.
There was, and that's the only bit of Punisher I've read recently,
(07:45):
because there's also a tie into a fairly notable Daredevil run that just ended as well,
where they're kind of on opposite sides of the hand fist fight,
where the Daredevil takes over one half to lead it.
And his take on Frank Castle slash the Punisher.
Also a fun fact, I don't, like I've mentioned,
I don't really read a lot of the Punisher stuff.
What I do like is the goofier Punisher stuff.
(08:07):
So in the future in the Marvel Universe, he's the cosmic ghost rider as well.
The ghost of Frank Castle becomes cosmic ghost rider.
And I have all those. I love those, but I don't like Punisher.
I think I need to look those up. I've never heard of that.
So if this is your first time joining us today, just heads up,
we'll be discussing the plot of this movie.
And with that, discuss some elements of the story that might be considered spoilers.
So consider yourself warned.
But if you want to watch it, I think it's on Tubi right now for free.
(08:28):
So go check it out.
Jeremy, why don't you give us a quick rundown of what happens in this movie?
All right, sure. So this is another reboot for the Punisher,
the previous Dolph Lundgren Punisher that we mentioned is a couple of years before this.
Didn't do incredibly well.
So this is kind of another attempt to start the Punisher.
But that means it's an entire origin story.
It's another one of these.
The entire movie is how did Frank Castle, ex detective or whatever, become the Punisher.
(08:52):
The entire movie is that it basically his family is attacked as a targeted attack on him
because of his previous job as law enforcement.
He survives the only survivor of this attack becomes an alcoholic,
living in some sort of low income housing while he plots his revenge on the Saint Crime Syndicate,
which is headed by John Travolta.
And then the last half of the movie is just him attacking their compound.
(09:15):
It's fine for what it is for an action movie for this.
But if you're looking for more detailed Punisher with any other Marvel heroes, it's not this.
The main crux of this movie is Frank Castle versus Howard Saint or
Thomas Jane versus John Travolta.
So let's talk about those two characters first.
How do you feel Thomas Jane did in portraying the Punisher or Frank Castle?
I mean, he played it very one dimension.
(09:36):
I think Ray Stevenson actually did a better job than I think Thomas Jane did the best he could.
I mean, he's a big guy as well.
He was well cut out for the role and he definitely tried to be serious.
But I just think he played it to one dimensional.
I think Frank Castle is more than I mean, he showed off good fighting skills,
but just one dimensional characterization.
It's a great movie.
I like I actually liked Saint much more than I liked Frank than Thomas Jane.
(09:59):
I am the exact opposite.
I thought that Thomas Jane did a fine job as Punisher, although I find him a very
one dimensional character anyway.
So maybe that's why I didn't mind his portrayal.
I thought the portrayal of and I don't know if Saint's from the comics or not,
but just as a like a crime lord kind of super character that he's supposed to fight against.
And he was not a superhero, but like this very involved crime member.
(10:22):
I don't know.
I just thought he was pretty tame.
Like a lot of it was just telling people what they need to do.
And even when he was supposed to get angry, it just seemed like he was too reserved.
I don't know.
I did not think John Travolta did a great job.
He wasn't awful, but I just thought he was John Travolta in this movie.
And Jeremy, I think I lean more towards your direction.
Frank Castle, actually, Thomas Jane, quarter the director and the producer.
(10:42):
He was the only one they considered for this role.
There was nobody else.
So there won't be a who could have been the Punisher at that point.
He was all one one.
Dolph Lundgren.
That would have been perfect right there.
Let's go with that.
And I'm shocked that you guys disagree with me, by the way.
Well, let me finish talking.
So like I said, talk away, my friend, talk away.
Like I said, Thomas Jane actually refused the role twice before accepting the role.
(11:06):
Finally, I've always thought the Punisher is a very one dimensional character.
It's probably because I haven't read it, but it's a classic revenge story where
instead of following the hero's code, he just murders everybody and kills everybody.
There's not really much to that.
In fact, I think that's kind of a point, isn't it?
That he died when his family died, like in the sense of there is nothing left of this man.
(11:26):
He's not a thing.
He's not about revenge anymore.
He's just going to go out and punish people.
And he even says that in the movie in a sense that there's nothing to him, which is why he
kind of plays him very flat.
Now, John Travolta, on the other hand, I thought he was a little too wacky to be taken as a
serious crime lord.
Like I'm kind of watching like this guy is just unhinged.
Now come to find out when I listen to the documentary material behind this.
(11:49):
John Travolta was just having fun with it.
He just said he'll take the role if he can just act however he wants to act.
So it's just John Travolta having fun with the role, not really taking it seriously.
So you're feeling intimidated when he said he had more guns?
You can have more guns, but you don't have more guys for those guns.
It doesn't matter.
I just didn't really sort of find him intimidating.
I just found he was just sort of just odd.
(12:10):
I found his assistant, his best friend, far more intimidating than John Travolta.
Really?
Wow.
This is a complete change of pace.
I still like the Punisher character.
I love the fights, especially with the Russian.
That was great.
But ultimately, you and I must have watched a different movie.
I think we did.
We want to get to the other characters.
(12:30):
So there's two henchmen they call in that I would say if you're going to look at it
from other than just like the Punisher fighting regular mob guys, they call in two like higher
guns, take them down.
One is this.
I don't remember what his name is, but he has Harry.
Okay.
Yeah.
He has a guitar case or whatever.
Love that character.
Thought he was cool.
Now, did he do a great job at killing a Punisher?
No, he clearly did not, but I liked the character.
(12:52):
Then they call in the Russian next who is played by Kevin Nash from WWE fame.
I think, although he may have been WCW, I don't remember.
I'm not a big wrestling guy.
Sorry if someone's screaming at the at the radio.
It's not my fault.
I'm not a wrestling guy, but either way, he comes across everyone else.
This movie looks like a normal person.
Even the guy they hired that Harry Hectic, we just talked about looks like a normal person.
(13:15):
He comes in, he's got this super colorful Popeye outfit on.
He comes out of nowhere.
He's got this goofy smile on his face the whole time.
They might as well have been playing Looney Tunes music behind the entire thing.
I hated the Russian encounter.
Hated it.
Really?
I thought the Russian guy was actually, it's a comic book movie, right?
Ultimately, it's still a comic book movie.
(13:36):
So you got to throw something every once in a while.
Again, given the overall theme and the arching theme of the movie, it was still,
they were attempting to make a comic.
It was actually based on one of Garth Ennis' books and a couple other books as well, the year one.
But given all of that, it's still a comic book movie.
So I thought the Harry Hectic one ended too fast.
He tried to drive the car.
He comes in with this incredibly intimidating song, which I love.
(13:58):
I love that song.
And then walks out and you're like eating breakfast, like what the F?
Oh, I love to sing that song.
It's my favorite song.
It's just really good with the black fingernails.
You're like, this guy's going to be badass.
And then he dies super quick with the shootout knife.
At least the Russian gave him a run for his money.
Yeah, but it seemed like it was from a different movie.
They just had this footage they used from some previous Punisher thing.
(14:19):
We got to use it.
We spent too much money getting this and too much money feelings.
We destroyed the entire house for this.
Let's keep it in.
Otherwise, I think the rest of the movie all had the same feel to it.
I thought that felt out of nowhere.
And then as soon as it's over, it goes back to feeling like the movie I watched previously.
That five minute segment is its own thing.
Jeremy, I think you're right on that.
It is out of a con to out of a different universe, it feels like.
(14:41):
The I actually enjoy the scene, but doesn't fit the movie.
I enjoy that fight scene.
I think he wasn't wearing the Popeye outfit or that little striped outfit or wherever he's wearing.
Yes, the outfit's 100% my problem.
It's Russian.
If they would even had scenes showing how he got there or anything else,
maybe I wouldn't be bothered.
But they mentioned they bring in the Russian or whatever.
(15:03):
And the next scene is that there's no connection to who this person is.
You just know he's Russian because he looks like a goofball.
It's not good.
And Harry Hek was sort of the same way.
He just shows up.
It's funny how they can find the Punisher so easily.
He's not hiding at all.
He's just not.
He went right up on the score steps and was like, I'm here, bitches, you're going to come get me.
(15:24):
And then he cut out his gravestone and put it on the thing when he was like,
I'm done with waiting for you people and I'm finished.
So he's like peppermint in that regard, the Jennifer Garner girl.
He's like, I'm not hiding from anybody.
What is true that sort of Jeremy, he said he felt like there should have been more.
Sorry, further, he said there should have more to the Harry Hek scene.
Yes.
That's sort of limited.
It's because they ran out of money.
They asked for $66 million to make this movie.
(15:45):
They got 35.
So they had to make a lot of cuts and they used a ton of practical effects,
which we'll talk about later.
So they had to make some serious hard decisions about fight scenes.
And here I've got a quote for you, which I thought was great.
This is describing the Russian scene from the Russian sucks.
Jeremy from movies that Jeremy, I'm sorry about these feelings, my friend.
(16:06):
No.
So on the set, they refer to that one scene, the Russian fight scene as a horrific clown show.
Yeah.
That ties mine is I have the same statement.
I'm going to come off camera and I'm going to say this out loud and say that Russian,
it was not a clown show.
He had a turkey dinner and then he went and fought a Russian and then Rebecca remained,
Stamos took care of him.
Oh, that whole scene.
(16:27):
I forgot they're in the kitchen singing during it.
Like that was what threw you off.
That was the dumb asses of it.
You put a bad guy and you put somebody else who's actually a really good character.
And they're holding hands and singing with Rebecca.
I mean, Stamos that feels completely emu, 100% emu.
Sorry if I offended our emu crowd.
We have emus.
We have female listeners like actual emo.
(16:50):
I don't know if we have emus, although an emo did reach out on his own and create a
whole destiny for himself.
So never understand emus.
That's the insurance commercial, isn't it?
One of the things I know the studio had issues with,
they thought the movie was way too dark.
So he kept asking to make it lighter, more energetic.
So I imagine I don't have any evidence of this, but I imagine the reason why they made
(17:11):
that scene was a little sillier was to make it less dark.
I mean, again, I didn't read the year one Garth Ennis book.
So maybe those neighbors are in there and maybe they are the same characters.
I don't know, but I think they were probably not.
You can tell me I'm wrong, Fergal, but I don't think they could have been
as goofy as they were in this.
Well, remember they used about three or four different books to make this movie.
(17:33):
So there was just a lot of hack and slash.
They didn't just pull from one source material or another.
This was pulled from Garth Ennis from year one, from different books within the four
different kinds of books that Punisher was putting out.
So they just kind of took inspiration where they wanted to.
That's the problem.
That's what they tried to fix in the Ray Stevenson Punisher.
They tried to go with one storyline, Jigsaw, and just go with that one.
(17:53):
This one just kind of gets a little bit all over the place.
And so that's where you get some of the kind of thrown together scenes,
but at least it's not Cemetery Man.
I would love to see a Harry Hek storyline.
That character was very interesting.
Yes, he was.
They should have showed more Harry Hek.
I just think that's a disappointment because he was, he did come in very cool.
Like, have you ever watched the replacement?
(18:13):
Have you guys ever seen that movie?
The Chow Young Fat movie?
The replacement killers?
Got Mia Servino and Chow Young Fat.
He's a super martial arts guy, crushing tiger, hidden dragon guy.
Awesome movie.
When they send in these replacements, or even Electra, when they sent in these
replacements, they were like, oh, I'm going to send in a
speciality killer.
That's an awesome scene, at least the fight scenes.
(18:34):
That's what these are supposed to be.
These specialists are supposed to be.
They're supposed to be specialists.
Or even like that character would fit in like Desperado, right?
That would have been fine in Desperado.
We're totally fine.
It would have been fine in Desperado, but Desperado in its own set of cool characters.
I know.
Danny Trejo was in Desperado.
We should have done this episode on Desperado.
I would have been a hundred percent down for that.
He threw knives inside of a limo.
(18:55):
No one could pull a gun on him.
He just killed everybody.
With knives, so he could reload every time.
Best part about Desperado, no Russian.
Thinking of knives and Russians, you know the part where the Punisher stabs the Russian in the chest?
So there was an accident on set where he actually stabbed him with a real knife.
(19:16):
Well, they had to use it then.
Okay, now I feel like they had to leave it in.
You actually stab a guy, you got to use that footage.
Makes sense.
Kevin Nash, for his apology from Thomas Jane, he just gave him a six pack of beer.
He got him a six pack of beer.
That is Kevin Nash.
Remember, these guys are crazy as long as you don't piss off a wrestler.
Are there any other characters that stood out that you want to talk about?
I think the Sons were, I mean, they pulled those people directly off of some Girls Maxim cover.
(19:38):
They had no, again, another idiot set of situations.
And like when Frank Castle played the undercover, come on, man, really?
That was completely out of, I didn't understand that at all.
So I thought that was interesting.
So can we say that Thomas Jane character number two was a little odd, a little out there?
No, the starting character.
Yeah, see, I didn't read any of the material that this would have even been pulled from.
(20:03):
So I thought it was goofy, but I thought that's how they were trying to make it realistic, right?
You always want to take a comic character and make it relatable to people who maybe didn't read the comics.
So you find something like, oh, he's undercover cop.
He's doing this sting operation.
Okay, fine.
Okay, totally fine with it.
But I did think it was goofy compared to the rest of the movie.
I think it fit right in.
So he's still on that Russian, man.
Still on that Russian.
(20:24):
Sorry, Russia.
So then why don't we talk a lot about a lot of the scenes in this movie?
So why don't we jump into that?
The first big scene, is the sting operation you talked about, Jeremy?
You knew that Thomas Jane was the Punisher.
You've seen the preview for the movie or whatever.
And the fact, I was like, is there like two characters with the same actor?
I couldn't quite, I was like, oh, I see what they're doing.
Because he gets shot.
(20:44):
I mean, the whole thing is he gets shot and you think he's dead, but then, oh wait, it was part of the operation.
He's supposed to take these squibs or whatever and not die.
Fine.
But I did think it was goofy because it's not like, that's not one of the things the Punisher that I knew him for, right?
Where he'd be like, oh, I'm a master of effects.
Like, I think he just shoots people.
But it was, I thought it made the character relatable.
You had to have a reason for him to be targeted by this family.
(21:07):
It gives you the background.
Like this other guy died by accident.
Their goal was not to kill the son of Howard Saint.
It was to capture him, right?
To use the sting to arrest him.
Instead, he gets shot because everything goes wrong or whatever.
But I thought it was fine.
But at first, I was worried that it was going to be one of those deals where there's two people look exactly the same and like the same actress playing two different characters.
I was like, oh, no, I don't want that.
(21:28):
Like a face off scenario?
Yeah, well, not a face off because that's so over the top.
It's fine.
But like, oh, this is the Punisher's twin.
He's really the Punisher's twin.
He's the bad guy.
Like, oh, but that didn't happen.
So that's good.
I've never heard that storyline.
Is this Thomas Jane with like a goatee?
I'm Hank Castle.
I heard, but you guys mentioned face off.
Let's also again mention what an amazing film that was.
(21:52):
I think they played their characters extremely well.
But I do think the beginning scene was a little bit, it was a little bit much for me.
It did set up why I had to go into hiding.
His son getting killed because of a series of botched henchmen with this other kid trying to do his son didn't even look like he belonged in that group of people on that drug buy.
So clearly, that whole situation was kind of thrown together with a different angle because he's supposed to stand out amongst all these people he's doing business with.
(22:17):
And he did.
And then he gets shot.
And then all of a sudden, this wife is like, kill them all.
Kill all of them for our son.
Kill them all.
And then you're like, wow, that's a cold lady, man.
She was grieving.
We all have, you all grieve different ways.
Some of us cry a lot and others murder dozens of people.
(22:38):
Well, it goes from there.
It goes into the family reunion scene with his father from Jaws.
And there was about 30 people there, I guess.
Yeah, this is a whole family.
The entire anyone that's ever been blood related to the Punisher is at this.
That was a bit odd.
I will say that was a bit like they were all there.
Every person and nobody canceled.
(22:59):
Yeah, no one had COVID.
That's how you know it's an old movie.
Nobody canceled.
Nobody said, I just not going to make it.
We're going to keep the cancel line going.
All the planes worked.
Everyone got there.
No delay.
Everybody got there.
And it was a small island.
And then, of course, Rod Steiger leading the show.
And then he just happens to show Thomas Jane is incredibly well modified.
Yeah, what was that?
He's desert eagle pistols.
(23:20):
Look at these beautifully modified $25,000 gold plated.
They'll kick your ass with a thousand.
These all have a bite of a shark type situations,
which is kind of a nod in the nose to the shark.
Well, they both were shark movies.
They were both in shark movies.
Now we disconnected them by six degrees of Kevin Baker.
(23:41):
Well, I think it's really to illustrate that his ability,
knowledge of weapons goes back.
It's his parents showed him how to use weapons.
So he's been learning since a small age how to murder individuals with.
Was his dad special forces?
I don't remember saying that or not.
I just know he had lots of guns.
Well, and it makes sense because then later on when you see the Punisher
kind of modifying these weapons to make them more dangerous,
(24:02):
he has experience doing that.
It's something his dad was a big fan of.
He did it with it.
That's fine.
And the scene also made sense to be like, why does the Punisher have
a whole bunch of guns with him on this island?
Like, well, he doesn't.
This guy has a bunch on this house, so he just conveniently is able to use them
when he needs them.
And also how he survives the whole thing.
I mean, he gets shot in the chest.
I mean, those villains, you got to make sure the body,
(24:23):
you got to watch the body actually die, right?
Or, you know, he's going to come back and get you.
Yeah. Well, they did the same thing that they did like Robocop.
You lighted something on fire, you assume that the explosion killed him
and you walk away.
No, never happens.
Didn't work out for Robocop.
It's going to happen to him too.
You have just made the formula for every horror movie starting with Jason,
Freddie and everywhere in between.
You could put the bullets, you got to do the damage, right?
(24:45):
I mean, at some point, I think the only true killing was the one out of Kingsman
in the first movie when the heads popped off.
At that point, you can rest assured they're dead.
Yeah. No, like in Halloween, you look away.
Don't look away.
Don't look away and say, oh, he's outside.
You know, he's going to be gone when you come back.
What a bad idea.
As an African American, you'll never catch me in a Halloween.
You'll never catch me in a forest.
You'll never catch me being down in a red shirt.
(25:06):
So one of the things I did want to talk about is the torture scene where he
torched him with a popsicle.
And I want to get your guys' opinion on that scene.
Jeremy, I'll let you go first.
I didn't think it fit the character of Punisher, especially by this point.
I mean, this guy is part of the reason that this original thing went bad that
killed this other guy that had his whole family wiped out.
And he basically fakes that he's going to torture him to death by, you know,
(25:29):
all these little tricks and the popsicle stabbing with the popsicles.
He thinks it's so hot, it's cold kind of thing.
I mean, it's fine, but it's not like he was that reserved with anybody else in
this movie, everybody else, no matter how minor the inconvenience in his way was,
he just gunned them down.
And this guy who has a reason to probably kill after he gets the information,
he's like, I was just joshing you.
And he lets him down.
Now we're buds.
(25:50):
We're buds.
He's the Rob Schneider of the movie.
They don't need Rob Schneider.
No, I think Chris is right.
He was the Rob Schneider for some reason.
He was the one that who brought the Saint Son to the movie.
Who brought the Saint Son there.
So he was like the Kaiser Soze of the movie.
He was the idiot savant genius who orchestrated all of it,
(26:10):
probably inherited all the Saint's money when they were all gone.
I would never call Rob Schneider an idiot savant.
The first half, maybe.
What scenes stood out to you guys?
Oh, the Russian scene.
Well, we already talked about the Russian scene.
That did stand out.
Better or worse, it did stand out.
I thought the scene with Harry that we talked about earlier,
(26:33):
the music scene in the diner was really good.
I thought the whole end, 20, 30 minutes,
where it's just the Punisher going after Saint,
or it's one long segment.
The actual, I guess, finishing off of Saint
by tying to the car and dragging him through the lot
while they expose all the cars.
Awesome scene.
Loved it.
(26:53):
But unfortunately, it was tainted because about 45 minutes beforehand,
there was this Popeye fighting scene.
What Popeye fighting scene are you talking about?
When he goes into the place and he's...
He's talking about where the Russian scene is.
The Russian scene.
Oh, come on, man.
You're going to let that kill the end scene of the movie
when he's got Saint.
And he's like, every car is blowing up on him.
(27:14):
It's not about vengeance.
It's about punishment.
And he's tying his legs to the back of it.
He's pulling out the bomb.
That was great.
And then having his son hold the bomb and be like,
you know, those clip walls weigh about three pounds.
Good luck holding that one.
I thought that was a great scene.
But again, another boy band model that just got his ass blown up.
I thought the one that was really...
That probably stands out was when he went into the Saint's building
(27:36):
and he shot up to two guys.
He did it old West style.
He kind of like, lay out, shot him up.
Old West style.
Got his both.
And of course, he would be using his dad, Rod Steiger,
who went after the original shark and used his supercharged pistols.
We got to say that final assault was...
That makes the movie, I think.
Yes.
It did a fantastic job.
But the scene you talk about, where he makes the son hold the mine.
(27:58):
The only weird thing was where he has the bow
when he's shooting from about five feet away.
I don't know why he would do that.
But nonetheless, he's trying to kill Silo or something.
It's not a gun.
He's not good with bows.
He's very bad with bows.
It has to be right there.
Or the C4 hidden inside the champagne bottle,
or under the champagne bottle, rather.
That got rid of a lot of gangsters, by the way.
(28:19):
They were all corralled around that champagne bottle.
That was horrible for everybody, right?
So if you're just a quick tip for anyone that chooses to want to be a gangster,
don't assemble all your people around one person with a bottle.
Disperse them amongst the crowd.
Yes.
Buy many bottles of champagne, not one.
I guess that's the PSA of today's episode.
(28:39):
Buy multiple bottles of champagne when you're celebrating.
Because you never know when there's C4 underneath them.
Now, how do you guys feel about the subplot where
he convinces Saint to murder his best friend and kill his wife?
That wasn't that hard.
That really wasn't that hard.
He was super gay, which is nothing wrong with being gay,
but he was definitely super gay.
(29:01):
And then he was like, and then for some reason,
I guess being a gangster, you don't trust anybody
because he went out like he didn't believe that even the wife knew he was gay.
But she was like, and so yeah, he was just trying to take away what you took away.
That's the whole point of the Punisher.
I'm going to take away what you took away from me.
You guys all talked about at the beginning.
He has nothing left except to do that.
I do this thing, same thing.
I don't kill a bunch of people to prove a point,
(29:22):
but if you've wronged me, I will come back at you tenfold.
And it was a joke I made one time and I said whatever something happens,
and I go over the top, so they ask, go tenfold.
And I was like, you're an idiot.
Stop it.
That was tenfold.
I loved it.
I love the fact that he basically is like, oh yeah, well, here's what I did.
You killed your best friend and your wife.
I tricked you like right as he's about to kill him.
Loved it.
I thought that made it worth it.
(29:43):
The fact that he then even explained it out loud to him.
Like it wasn't just like, yeah, you can watch it.
You know what happened.
He pieced it together like, no, he won't.
I'm going to tell you.
I'm going to tell you what I did.
I thought that was great.
It was great.
I guess the way he set him up, the whole thing was fantastic.
Even the fake fire hydrant to reserve his parking space
so he can come back and put the car back where it belongs.
(30:03):
We used to put in Maryland where we lived,
and it's the only place I've ever had to do this,
but in Maryland during the winter, especially those couple bad winners,
you'd have to put chairs on.
People get pretty serious about their parking space.
They clear out in front of their house.
They do in both directions.
In both, and chairs will start showing up.
Garbage cans will show up.
Folks will get into fights.
They will.
I thankfully live in a place where we have our own spots.
It's blocked off.
(30:24):
You can't just take someone else's thing.
But yes, it does.
It does happen also for parades.
I don't know what it is about this state.
The state loves parades.
For parades, they put out chairs like weeks ahead of time.
It's weird.
I think Philly takes a whole new level.
When I used to work in downtown Philly or Center City Philly,
they would put chairs down, cones down,
(30:46):
and a person would just sit there and wait for the car to come in,
truly guard their spot, even the spots that are illegal spots in the center of the road.
I would assume they did that in probably South Boston as well.
I've watched enough parking wars to know,
don't get caught up in South Boston doing some shit like that.
They do that stuff all the time out there as well.
They got collective neighborhood watchers.
Shotguns.
(31:08):
Now, this movie comes in just over two hours.
Slow, fast, just right.
I've seen it so many times that time doesn't even matter to me at this point.
Watching this movie, you can watch it and you could probably fast forward
to about three quarters of it because it leads and then there are points
where you got to catch in the middle.
I think the interesting thing is, like I said, that next one, that Ray Stevenson one,
(31:28):
you got to watch a little bit, but then it gets also twisted.
By the way, fun fact, have you guys seen Punisher Dirty Laundry?
Have you seen the 2012 short film with Thomas Jane doing his laundry?
Because it literally is a better version of this movie.
And it's much shorter.
It's about 12 minutes long.
It was a mini film that he made in 2012, kind of professionally made.
(31:50):
Punisher doing his laundry, dirty laundry.
It's pretty damn sweet.
It's actually got its own cult following.
Well, that's actually interesting because I was going to say this movie is about
an hour and 48 minutes too long.
So 12 minutes is probably perfect.
It's still the Russian man.
I'm so sorry, my man.
It's not just the Russian.
Okay. And I've had this complaint about every movie that's an origin movie, even Superman.
(32:12):
We talked about the 1978 Superman.
It's like, yeah, it's the origin.
So the first half of this movie is him becoming super.
That's how this felt to me.
I was like, we're 45 minutes in.
We have not seen the Punisher yet.
We've seen his family die 30 minutes in.
So there's 30 minutes of not anything.
And then 50 minutes where he's just kind of flailing around.
He finds the shirt that his son gave him.
That's where the Punisher Lego came from.
(32:33):
All this.
But he doesn't show up to kick ass until 45 minutes into this movie.
And you don't need that.
Anyone watching the Punisher, there's not one person was like, I don't know who this guy is.
I need some background.
Not one person either.
Deep introspective.
That is a very deep introspective.
I think they spent all that time trying to build up saints and Stygre.
(32:55):
I think that's where they had to build up Stygre and then his very innocent wife,
who looked the exact opposite of him.
I give you a picture, anyone to be the wife of his mother.
And it's always the interesting, the timid ladies who end up with these massive big dudes husbands.
What is going on there?
I have no idea what you're talking about, but.
Well, if you look at Thomas, the Punisher's wife, she does not look like a typical leading lady.
(33:20):
Let's just put it to you that way.
She does not look like a typical leading lady.
You have a lot of choices where you could have made the Punisher's wife.
And she does not look like it.
He's complaining about his dead wife?
No, no, I'm not complaining about his dead wife.
Let it be clear, I don't complain about anyone's dead wife, but as a wife choice,
when you meet her, she just does not strike you as the Punisher's wife.
I do have to say, even though that's not his dead wife,
(33:42):
I was happy that they didn't try to make a love angle with Rebecca Romaine Stamos.
I was worried when her boyfriend came and he rescued her or whatever.
I was like, oh, no, we're not going to have like Punisher love scene.
I don't need that.
I don't need that.
I've already had 45 minutes of happy Punisher.
I don't need any more.
Two things. First off, the Punisher's first wife, he wasn't the Punisher at the time.
(34:05):
Right? So that's the FBI agent's wife.
Right? But I think you're right.
I am very happy that there was no love story because he's supposed to be dead inside
and there's no love when you're dead.
So it's good that he basically shut it down.
I mean, she was going for it.
He's like, nope, not happening.
Yeah, I liked that part of it.
Honestly, everything with the neighbors I enjoyed except for the part where they held
(34:28):
hands and sang because it didn't make any sense there.
But other than that, I liked how they kind of helped him out.
They brought him into their little circle.
It made it when they got attacked later on.
It made sense that that's like what pushed him to finally be like, fuck this.
I'm going to take these guys down right now.
I'm done.
These assholes bothered my really nice neighbors.
That's like, okay, I get it.
Like that was all really cool.
But I was glad they didn't have a love angle.
(34:50):
How long did he recover from that serious beating he took by the Russian
before he went and wrecked Holy Hell on St.
Charles?
Does anybody have a window of recovery on that?
He recovered awfully fast.
Just 32 minutes.
It's plot armor.
He doesn't need to recover.
He's a superhero.
I'm just saying there were bruises on his face.
He got his ass whooped.
(35:11):
Jeremy, I'm with you, though.
I think the movie, I mean, we've talked about a thousand times these origin movies.
The buildup is always so slow because I understand what they're trying to do.
They're trying to make you like the character and understand the character.
But that's a problem we really, really had with these origin movies going back years.
I like them better when they just sort of it's flashbacks, right?
Or just jump into the story.
(35:31):
The next Batman movie, please don't make it about how his parents were killed at Grand
Mali.
I don't need to see that for the 10th time.
No, and I can say I can't believe I'm about to say this.
I have something to say about Daredevil is that Daredevil doesn't have 45 minutes of his
backstory.
It's the beginning.
It's some flashbacks.
But other than that, he's Daredevil kind of when the movie starts.
They should have done that with this.
So the one thing I do want to tell you, because I know how much you how much punish you want.
(35:53):
There is a director's cut of this movie with an extra like 30 minutes of footage.
What could you possibly throw in this movie for another 30 minutes to add any more value
or depth to this movie?
Supposedly it's darker, bloodier, and there's just more explosions, more killing.
Who is he going to kill?
Because once he's wiped, he wiped them all out with a claymore and then he just shot
everybody.
You have infinite henchmen.
As I say, there's unlimited gang members.
(36:15):
You could have identified a million gang members.
I was hoping it just wasn't like 30 more minutes with a Russian.
Well, he killed the Russian.
Remember, he did.
You know, he could have had that fight be twice as long so I can roll my eyes twice
as hard.
There's a Russian dancing.
He comes in first and he danced a little bit.
Then the murder.
That would make it awesome.
Actually, I would do that.
(36:36):
I would love to battle dance before we actually fought.
So the effects of this movie, it was pretty much all practical effects.
How did you feel about the effects for it?
I liked it.
I thought that everything did look like practical effects.
There wasn't a whole lot that I thought was goofy.
That's not how those effects look really goofy.
They're over the top or whatever.
I thought the effects were really good.
(36:57):
The only thing I literally was like, but at the same time, it was fine, was towards the
end.
I think we already said we're going to spoil this movie.
So at the end, when he blows up all the cars and it zooms out and it's the Punisher logo,
I was like, oh, like I get what they're aiming for.
But it was just like a bit on the nose.
That was a bit on the nose.
I think they did a good job of throwing that one.
(37:17):
It was fine, but it's like that's where it stabbed me back into.
That's right.
This is a comic movie, right?
Between that and the Russian, those are the two scenes where I was like, because otherwise
I thought it was fine.
Even though it was dragging this parking lot, his cars exploded.
It was on a plane.
And I thought that was cool.
But then just having it zoom out to this really clearly cut Punisher face was like.
(37:38):
It reminds me of Dark Knight Rises where Batman goes and puts a burning sign on the walls.
How much time do you spend?
Yes.
It's exactly what that's it.
That was my point.
That led into my earlier point about how much time Frank Castle recovered before he went
to war with the state family.
And then now he somehow when he before he went in there and wiped them all away, he took
his time to very carefully place those cars and gasoline in the right direction so that
(38:01):
when it started burning, it burned exactly as a symbol.
Maybe it's an illusion of how prepared that man is.
He spends time.
He puts effort into his work.
He really cares.
He really cares.
And there's Batman prepared, so I believe he is slightly prepared, but he is never going
to be Batman prepared.
So for this movie, guys, what did you love about it?
What could they have done better?
(38:22):
Oh, Harry Hacks.
I like the song.
I like Harry Hacks.
I think they should have made that Harry Hacks scene.
They should have started with that song and then give him the 20 minute fight scene.
I actually fully agree.
If they would have removed the Russian completely and just focused all that time.
Remove the Russian.
They could take a picture of them together at the beach.
(38:42):
I don't know.
I didn't need to see him in the movie.
I'm just saying that that Harry Hacks character was much cooler.
I think he made more sense.
I would have much rather seen a cool fight with him.
They could have had a shoot off.
They could have a bunch of cool stuff, but they didn't.
And instead, you got to watch this WrestleFest with Kevin Nash through walls of the house,
which was unnecessary.
That's what I didn't like.
I thought it was just too slow.
There's too much build up.
(39:04):
There's too much need to go back and explain like this is why Frank's so mad.
You don't need to explain why Frank's so mad.
You don't need 45 minutes to say like, look how happy he was.
Don't need any of that.
Five minutes.
Five minutes with his family would have been enough.
They could have skipped everything.
They could have skipped everything.
But like, hey, we're at the beach now because I just finished this.
I'm on vacation.
That's all you needed.
That's it.
You see his family.
(39:25):
Everyone's happy.
Whatever.
Then he kills everybody.
He gets to come on and see his dead wife.
That's all you needed to explain why he's so mad.
And instead, we got 45 minutes of it.
Other than that, I thought the rest of the movie, other than the Russian, which I've
complained about, is actually fine.
There's just too much time at the beginning.
And the Russian scene is awful.
Yeah, I think the movie, it's a good, it's a decent action movie.
I guess there's, you take the punisher out of it.
(39:47):
It's not bad as an action flick.
It's got a lot of great explosions.
It's got some good fight scenes.
I think to make it better, they should not have been afraid with going dark.
I mean, it's a rated-art movie.
They should really embrace that and really gone after it.
I think if they, I felt like they wanted to be a little comic, accurate with the Russian, maybe.
Maybe just don't put them in a striped, red and white shirt.
(40:08):
Make them look like Popeye and just get rid of the Italian music in the background.
I think you probably would have enjoyed that scene better, Jeremy.
Yeah.
Well, you wouldn't have had the dancing around the kitchen then.
Unneeded.
Then you wouldn't have had the spaghetti or Rebecca Romaine with the whole thing.
And they wouldn't have created that amazing family-like experience that company, that
Christmas dinner.
I think the family experience was established when he saved her from her ex-boyfriend.
(40:31):
I don't think they, I think that he just removed the spaghetti scene.
They could have made the Nash section bigger.
Oh, it's not Nash, the hairy section.
See, that was a true word.
We've got to add the rest.
Spetsnast, that's what he was.
Spetsnast, that's Russian special forces.
Extend the fight scene with the guy, the guitar.
He was really neat.
(40:51):
He was fun.
But really embrace the fact you're rated-art.
Embrace the fact that you can get gritty with it.
And you don't need to be funny.
No one reads The Punisher because it's funny.
I can't imagine you're like, you know what, I want a good laugh today.
Let's read some Punisher.
I don't think that's a thing.
Fergal correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't.
So for me, it likes a good action flick and just make it less comic booky.
(41:14):
It would have been a much better film.
A sequel was only made in, you sort of brought the Dirty Laundry short
as the only sequel that was ever made for this movie.
Direct Thomas Jane sequel, yes.
It's the only one.
It's actually a YouTube only short that you can find and you can just look that up on YouTube.
Should they have made a full sequel after this movie?
Not at all.
They did.
They tried the Ray Stevenson jigsaw one.
(41:35):
They overcorrected.
I think is what I would probably say in that one.
I think they just slightly overcorrected on that one.
No, nope.
I mean, I would have liked to see something else with The Punisher, maybe.
But after watching this, I didn't need any more straight Punisher movies.
I like him as a side character with another movie.
He can show up in a Spider-Man movie.
I know it wouldn't make any sense for who owns rights or whatever.
(41:57):
It doesn't matter.
Ignore all that.
If he would have shown up as like that gray character who Spider-Man has teamed up with,
but then he has to kind of turn against him because he knows he's going to do the wrong thing.
That's how I've always liked The Punisher.
So he would have been fine.
Now that he's established, you have his backstory.
You know why he's so angry.
We don't need any more Punisher movies.
Going forward, the MCU, I mean, are they going to introduce him into it?
(42:17):
And he's kind of not with his Netflix shows, but I didn't like the Netflix show for The Punisher.
I just don't see him as a main character.
John Barenthal, he's a huge part of the Daredevil Reborn story.
So I mean, he's a huge...
So I mean, if you go into...
I've been checking on this one a lot, the Doomsday, the Secret Wars, Battleworld.
And they've actually got...
(42:38):
And again, this is just conjecture at this point, but part of the Marvel's next success,
because they're taking on James Gunn, is they're trying to go back and bring up that nostalgia.
So you probably will see Thomas Jane.
You probably will see a Ray Stevenson.
You might see a John Barenthal.
You'll definitely see different variants all in one place.
Well, for the MCU, I hope they stop doing variants. It's getting very annoying.
(43:03):
Well, that was catchy.
I think we still got a few more multiverse sagas to go through.
We certainly do.
So should people go out and seek this movie out?
You don't have to. It comes on TNT every Sunday at like one o'clock.
It's also free on Tubi, as we mentioned.
I would say you don't need to hunt this down.
I mean, I guess if you're a big Punisher fan, maybe it's well worth looking into.
And if you're like, I have to see a Punisher movie,
(43:23):
I'd pick this one over the Dolph Lundgren Punisher.
But otherwise, I don't know. This is a skip for me.
I think if you're looking for an action flick that you want to put on the background,
it's not a bad one to deal with.
There are better ones out there, but I don't think it's one you need to go track down.
So before we get our views, I really appreciate it if you are a listener.
You can go find us on Apple and Spotify. Leave us a five star review.
It's great to support the show.
(43:44):
And if you help new listeners discover us and let's not keep the show a secret.
So guys, how do you review this movie?
I would give this a half thumbs up.
And because our good friend Jeremy is beating up on the Russians so often,
my thumb was three quarters, but now it has gone down to a half.
Because now that song is in my a done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done.
(44:04):
So now I'm going to be listening to that all night, whether I want to or not.
This might be the lowest rated movie I've had so far on this.
I'm giving this a quarter thumb, like a quarter down thumb.
It's not totally trash.
It's fine.
You mentioned if you had it in the background, like, sure.
But there are better things to have out in the background.
(44:24):
If there was something else going on with The Punisher and you're like,
I wish I knew more about Punisher.
This is a totally acceptable way to explain who The Punisher is.
It's fine.
Is it a good movie on its own?
No, I would not rewatch this.
I have no interest in seeing this again.
Wow. I was expecting like, you know, half a C4.
No, no, it doesn't even get a funny answer.
I just did not care for it.
So I'd probably go about half thumb.
For me, it's a decent action movie.
(44:46):
People should go see the Russian scene and see why Jeremy hates it so much.
I bet if you saw it on its own, you'd be like, what's wrong with this guy?
But if you watch the first hour of this movie before then,
and you're like, where did this come from?
What is this?
Why is this extra from who frame Roger Rabbit in this movie?
Just talked about that last night.
I was on Etsy looking for that gun.
(45:06):
My brother put that on a group post.
I was like, I need to find that gun from Roger.
It just became a thing.
And he's like, he's egging me.
I was like, you need to buy this.
And I just started looking at it.
It's been on my phone.
I'm literally looking at as we talk right now.
It is such a cool little weapon.
But I'm sorry.
We completely digress to who frame Roger Rabbit, one of the best movies of all time.
Yeah, that gets a thumbs up.
That gets thumbs up, too.
So guys, I do have a mailbag for us.
(45:28):
But if you are listening, want to give us a shout out or send us a comment
or just have us read something on the air, just make sure you go to
movie-smash.com on the bottom.
There's a form.
Just fill it out and send that in.
But guys, I do have one for you.
This actually is actually targeted specifically to you to Fergal.
So awesome.
OK, so this is from LK.
They didn't even put their full name onto it.
(45:48):
Well, it's going to be a fun one.
Is this Mean Tweets?
I love it.
Let's take it.
Great show, guys.
I love everyone's different take on the movies.
I did not realize Atomic Blonde was a comic.
You guys are so funny.
I've got to ask Fergal, sometimes you do a funny voice during the intro.
It sounds like you're trying to lure small children to an unmarked van.
Are you doing it on purpose?
Well, let me take this in a two part answer, if I may.
(46:11):
OK, first off, I try never to lure small children to a van.
Secondly, that funny voice would be the amazing voice of Fergalicious, who is delicious.
So we'll just leave that there.
And that is our mailbag.
So guys, as we head out, where can people find you?
They can get my nerd on and get my nerd on and got on our Facebook page,
(46:33):
our Instagram page, our TikTok page.
You got all kinds of neat stuff out there.
And as I said, we're working our way back.
And as always, I'm on Retrovania.net, where our podcast and YouTube
channel and our Twitch channel, all of that stuff is there talking about retro games.
And as mentioned, the podcast, the Subtastic's are going to be trying to do some road shows
(46:54):
this summer to get ready to try to do some heavier road appearances this fall.
So if you like Subtastic's, you can find us subtastic.bandcamp.com.
And what states are you hitting?
Well, nothing is booked yet, for sure.
So somewhere up and down the East Coast, though, we live on the East Coast.
We're going to have to make these long weekends or maybe one solid week,
because I don't have a lot of time.
So I mean, like that sounds dark.
(47:15):
You guys are actually going to do shows?
You guys are going to do shows?
No, we play out now.
We play out now, but just locally.
But we're trying to go out.
As a band or as your show?
No, as a band, as a band.
I'm not Retrovania.
This is Subtastic's.
You guys need to do one of those Lollapalooza events, man.
Well, I would wish we were in any way big enough to do so.
So we'll see.
We'll see how this goes.
I would like to personally bring this out.
(47:38):
Jeremy Pompeteer needs to be at Lollapalooza.
Whoever's listening to this needs to make that happen.
Yeah, as the coordinator who's listening, we know you are.
Book Jeremy.
He gets busy pretty fast, from what I understand.
And for me, you can always find me over at All Fatal Creations.
We're always over there building some piece of nerd furniture.
I want to thank you, our listener, for spending some time with us today.
If you have any thoughts about The Punisher and how this is probably the best Punisher out there,
(48:00):
it is the best.
Send us a note over at movie-smash.com and we'll see you in a couple weeks.
Thank you again for listening and I hope you enjoy the show.
This has been Movie Smash with Chris Roberts, Jeremy Pompeteer, and Fergal Amayo, produced
by me, Chris Roberts, executive produced by Off Panel Creations, LLC.
Movie clips provided by their respective studios.
You can rate and review the show at Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
(48:23):
You might even find your review read on a future episode.
Got a question for us?
Visit us at movie-smash.com and send us a note.
It too can be read on a future episode.
If you want to see more of this, check out the show's website.
It too can be read on a future episode.
If you haven't already, please subscribe to Movie Smash wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Quote, the Russian sucks, Jeremy from Movie Smash.
Okay everybody, it's Michael E. Cullen II.
(00:02):
And I'm Sesame and Carter from the All Too Real 2 podcast.
We're passionate about movies, TV, and pretty much all things pop culture.
Dive into the chaos of failed sitcoms,
direct-to-video sequels, and the quirky realms of cinema and TV.
Join us every Thursday for your dose of All Too Real 2 entertainment.
We'll guide you through debates like whether Howard the Duck qualifies as a superhero.
(00:26):
Ponder if Larry the Cable Guy could be the new Rock or Schwarzenegger.
Discover if some shows and movies should have stayed in the cutting room.
Ever heard of a sitcom featuring that dictator with the funny mustache?
Well, we watched it.
We're dedicated to unraveling the peculiarities of pop culture, sometimes with awesome guests.
So, if you're into the eccentric world of pop culture,
(00:48):
listen and subscribe to All Too Real 2,
available wherever you find podcasts,
and on the age of radio.
Some of us cry a lot and others murder dozens of people.
We destroyed the entire house for this.
That feels completely evil.
You and I must have watched a different movie.
(01:10):
And I'm shocked that you guys disagree with me, by the way.
Quote, the Russian sucks.
Jeremy from Movie Smash.
Hello and welcome to Movie Smash.
Hello and welcome to Movie Smash,
the show where we dive headfirst into the Kankba movies outside the MCU.
(01:32):
If you're new to the show, thanks for joining us.
If you've been here before, you know the drill.
Each episode, we're going to smash a movie who sourced materials from a graphic novel or comic.
Is it worth revisiting?
Should it be forgotten?
Let's find out.
This is Movie Smash.
I'm one of your hosts, Chris Roberts.
I'm the founder of All Panel Creations.
With me today, I have Jeremy Parmiteer.
Hey, this is Jeremy Parmiteer, also the RetroVaniacs podcast,
(01:53):
and the Subtastics recently signed to Allegedly Record.
Wow, that's news to everybody.
That is news. Congratulations, man.
And FurgulaMile.
This is FurgulaMile.
We get nerds on just loving and talking to folks and getting ready to bring the store back.
I'm excited about that opportunity.
We're looking forward to doing that in the next year or so.
And that's our opportunity today.
(02:15):
So let's get into this movie.
I love this movie.
All right.
Our movie tonight is 2004's The Punisher starring Thomas Jane,
John Travolta, and Samantha Mathis, directed by Jonathan Hensley.
They thought they murdered me.
They were wrong.
(02:35):
They were dead wrong.
Batman must die.
Don't let your memories kill you.
They can't kill me.
I'm already dead.
Thomas Jane, John Travolta.
Make Castle dead, whatever it takes, whatever it costs.
This is not revenge.
(03:00):
It's punishment.
So before we jump into the movie, guys, I just want to go over some comic book news.
Jason Momoa has been officially announced as the new Lobo for the new DCU.
Well, I'll tell you this.
They've been announcing a lot.
So there's been a lot of data coming out about these movies, especially from the James Gunn
sign, not only Jason Lobo for, and that's for Supergirl.
So that's the Supergirl Tomorrow movie.
(03:21):
That's going to be the main villain in that movie.
I think it's a great pick.
I mean, he looks just like Lobo.
I don't know a lot about Lobo, but he does look like Lobo.
I always thought of Lobo as more of like a medley guy, like a Lemmy for Motorhead type,
but I don't know anything about him.
I just know what he looks like.
And I think I've read a handful of pages over the years.
I'm not a big DC guy.
So all these other characters are bringing on, unless it's some of the mainstays.
(03:42):
I don't know them, but I'm learning about them and I'm enjoying it thoroughly.
And I'm sure I'll learn about more as we dive into some of the DC movies as we go through these.
He's pretty badass.
I only really know him as a side character for, you know, or a villain of the other movies.
For like a Justice League cartoon episode or something.
So, but he looks the part and he said he's been wanting to play it for some time.
It's just going to be kind of weird that he was Aquaman and now he's Lobo.
(04:05):
But no, I think we can also spin our sense of disbelief on that one.
Well, that's not really Aquaman.
So I think that will be an easy, forgetful character.
He's really, that was a parody of Aquaman.
Aquaman is a much better character than what was shown in that movie.
But for Lobo, absolutely.
Lobo is a great character.
He's got a snarky attitude.
(04:26):
He's a Cezarnian.
He's actually as strong as Superman.
So it'll be a really interesting character.
And he's just a, he travels with a space dolphin.
That's his best friend is a space dolphin.
Which isn't that pretty much the best friend of Aquaman, a space dolphin?
I think Aquaman just had fishes.
Yeah, he talks to fishes from what I understand.
So anyway, let's talk about tonight's movie, The Punisher.
Were you guys familiar with The Punisher as a character before the first time you saw this movie?
(04:49):
I'm staring at the first issue.
I'm staring at the first issue on my wall.
Yeah, I'm definitely familiar with Frank Castle.
Yeah, I also knew the character.
Again, as I've mentioned, every time we do one of these like kind of darker Marvel movies,
those are my brother's comics more than mine.
I was more of the classic superheroes and he had all these.
So I knew about Punisher.
I don't think I've ever read like a standard Punisher book, only like short mini series.
(05:12):
He's hard for me to see as a character I want to like.
He's kind of that good gray area where he could be good.
He could be bad like Catwoman.
You don't really know.
I mean, he doesn't have skills like Catwoman, but you know what I mean, like that kind of character.
So as a main book, main character in a movie, we'll see if I like it or not.
But I don't really like the comics where he's the main character.
Now I'm visiting Catwoman with a massive machine gun taking him off him.
(05:36):
Which Catwoman?
Would it be Selina Kyle Catwoman, the one that was in the Batman movie,
or will it be the Halle Berry Catwoman?
Because her with the machine gun, that would be rather weird to just kind of pick.
That would, that screws the whole image up.
I really was not too familiar with the Punisher when this movie came out.
That seemed wasn't really at my alley that my sort of hero, but no, that was then.
Let's talk about now.
So was, I assume this was not your first viewing guys, was this?
(05:58):
No, no, I've memorized most of this movie.
I've seen this movie hundreds.
I've seen all of the Punishers, including the Dolph London one.
That's the only one I'd see.
This is the first time I've seen this version of the Punisher.
Which is funny.
I've seen this movie several times, but for whatever reason, I always get confused with
Swordfish that came out around the same time.
Such a cool movie though.
(06:19):
That was such a cool movie.
I don't understand how you can confuse it too.
Cause he was the Swordfish.
I mean, I don't like the little, the little Fu Manchu thing he's got in his beard,
but I think he's very cool bad guy in that movie.
Well, what happens, I was getting ready for our podcast today and I was thinking about
like who was in the movie.
I'm typing up the show notes and I typed Halle Berry in there.
I'm like, wait, no, she's not in this movie though.
(06:40):
Because yeah, again, the Swordfish.
So Fergal, why don't you give us a little bit of history about who the Punisher is?
Punisher is Frank Castle.
One of the most, one of the, I don't know, let's call it top 20 most valuable comic books.
Maybe top 25 is Amazing Spider-Man 129, first appearance of Frank Castle.
Created by Jerry Conway, drawn by none other than John Romita Sr.
(07:03):
And also Ross Andrew.
And he's just, he's got, as Heidi had four separate books going on,
he's like a one man wage war.
His wife and son, his wife and child get killed by the mob.
And he just goes on a one man black and white war.
He's been kind of retconned.
He's got a lot of different versions of him.
He's very well, like kind of the Batman, if you will.
So he's definitely got some things going on for himself.
(07:25):
And it's a pretty sweet comic.
It's actually one of the top, I mean, Punisher is one of the top kind of like,
let's call it top 30, top 40 characters that focus talk about when they talk about characters.
He's had a lot of iterations on TV and movie.
Wasn't there a recent reiteration of the characters?
Something about like some sort of Asian influence to it, if I remember correctly.
There was, and that's the only bit of Punisher I've read recently,
(07:45):
because there's also a tie into a fairly notable Daredevil run that just ended as well,
where they're kind of on opposite sides of the hand fist fight,
where the Daredevil takes over one half to lead it.
And his take on Frank Castle slash the Punisher.
Also a fun fact, I don't, like I've mentioned,
I don't really read a lot of the Punisher stuff.
What I do like is the goofier Punisher stuff.
(08:07):
So in the future in the Marvel Universe, he's the cosmic ghost rider as well.
The ghost of Frank Castle becomes cosmic ghost rider.
And I have all those. I love those, but I don't like Punisher.
I think I need to look those up. I've never heard of that.
So if this is your first time joining us today, just heads up,
we'll be discussing the plot of this movie.
And with that, discuss some elements of the story that might be considered spoilers.
So consider yourself warned.
But if you want to watch it, I think it's on Tubi right now for free.
(08:28):
So go check it out.
Jeremy, why don't you give us a quick rundown of what happens in this movie?
All right, sure. So this is another reboot for the Punisher,
the previous Dolph Lundgren Punisher that we mentioned is a couple of years before this.
Didn't do incredibly well.
So this is kind of another attempt to start the Punisher.
But that means it's an entire origin story.
It's another one of these.
The entire movie is how did Frank Castle, ex detective or whatever, become the Punisher.
(08:52):
The entire movie is that it basically his family is attacked as a targeted attack on him
because of his previous job as law enforcement.
He survives the only survivor of this attack becomes an alcoholic,
living in some sort of low income housing while he plots his revenge on the Saint Crime Syndicate,
which is headed by John Travolta.
And then the last half of the movie is just him attacking their compound.
(09:15):
It's fine for what it is for an action movie for this.
But if you're looking for more detailed Punisher with any other Marvel heroes, it's not this.
The main crux of this movie is Frank Castle versus Howard Saint or
Thomas Jane versus John Travolta.
So let's talk about those two characters first.
How do you feel Thomas Jane did in portraying the Punisher or Frank Castle?
I mean, he played it very one dimension.
(09:36):
I think Ray Stevenson actually did a better job than I think Thomas Jane did the best he could.
I mean, he's a big guy as well.
He was well cut out for the role and he definitely tried to be serious.
But I just think he played it to one dimensional.
I think Frank Castle is more than I mean, he showed off good fighting skills,
but just one dimensional characterization.
It's a great movie.
I like I actually liked Saint much more than I liked Frank than Thomas Jane.
(09:59):
I am the exact opposite.
I thought that Thomas Jane did a fine job as Punisher, although I find him a very
one dimensional character anyway.
So maybe that's why I didn't mind his portrayal.
I thought the portrayal of and I don't know if Saint's from the comics or not,
but just as a like a crime lord kind of super character that he's supposed to fight against.
And he was not a superhero, but like this very involved crime member.
(10:22):
I don't know.
I just thought he was pretty tame.
Like a lot of it was just telling people what they need to do.
And even when he was supposed to get angry, it just seemed like he was too reserved.
I don't know.
I did not think John Travolta did a great job.
He wasn't awful, but I just thought he was John Travolta in this movie.
And Jeremy, I think I lean more towards your direction.
Frank Castle, actually, Thomas Jane, quarter the director and the producer.
(10:42):
He was the only one they considered for this role.
There was nobody else.
So there won't be a who could have been the Punisher at that point.
He was all one one.
Dolph Lundgren.
That would have been perfect right there.
Let's go with that.
And I'm shocked that you guys disagree with me, by the way.
Well, let me finish talking.
So like I said, talk away, my friend, talk away.
Like I said, Thomas Jane actually refused the role twice before accepting the role.
(11:06):
Finally, I've always thought the Punisher is a very one dimensional character.
It's probably because I haven't read it, but it's a classic revenge story where
instead of following the hero's code, he just murders everybody and kills everybody.
There's not really much to that.
In fact, I think that's kind of a point, isn't it?
That he died when his family died, like in the sense of there is nothing left of this man.
(11:26):
He's not a thing.
He's not about revenge anymore.
He's just going to go out and punish people.
And he even says that in the movie in a sense that there's nothing to him, which is why he
kind of plays him very flat.
Now, John Travolta, on the other hand, I thought he was a little too wacky to be taken as a
serious crime lord.
Like I'm kind of watching like this guy is just unhinged.
Now come to find out when I listen to the documentary material behind this.
(11:49):
John Travolta was just having fun with it.
He just said he'll take the role if he can just act however he wants to act.
So it's just John Travolta having fun with the role, not really taking it seriously.
So you're feeling intimidated when he said he had more guns?
You can have more guns, but you don't have more guys for those guns.
It doesn't matter.
I just didn't really sort of find him intimidating.
I just found he was just sort of just odd.
(12:10):
I found his assistant, his best friend, far more intimidating than John Travolta.
Really?
Wow.
This is a complete change of pace.
I still like the Punisher character.
I love the fights, especially with the Russian.
That was great.
But ultimately, you and I must have watched a different movie.
I think we did.
We want to get to the other characters.
(12:30):
So there's two henchmen they call in that I would say if you're going to look at it
from other than just like the Punisher fighting regular mob guys, they call in two like higher
guns, take them down.
One is this.
I don't remember what his name is, but he has Harry.
Okay.
Yeah.
He has a guitar case or whatever.
Love that character.
Thought he was cool.
Now, did he do a great job at killing a Punisher?
No, he clearly did not, but I liked the character.
(12:52):
Then they call in the Russian next who is played by Kevin Nash from WWE fame.
I think, although he may have been WCW, I don't remember.
I'm not a big wrestling guy.
Sorry if someone's screaming at the at the radio.
It's not my fault.
I'm not a wrestling guy, but either way, he comes across everyone else.
This movie looks like a normal person.
Even the guy they hired that Harry Hectic, we just talked about looks like a normal person.
(13:15):
He comes in, he's got this super colorful Popeye outfit on.
He comes out of nowhere.
He's got this goofy smile on his face the whole time.
They might as well have been playing Looney Tunes music behind the entire thing.
I hated the Russian encounter.
Hated it.
Really?
I thought the Russian guy was actually, it's a comic book movie, right?
Ultimately, it's still a comic book movie.
(13:36):
So you got to throw something every once in a while.
Again, given the overall theme and the arching theme of the movie, it was still,
they were attempting to make a comic.
It was actually based on one of Garth Ennis' books and a couple other books as well, the year one.
But given all of that, it's still a comic book movie.
So I thought the Harry Hectic one ended too fast.
He tried to drive the car.
He comes in with this incredibly intimidating song, which I love.
(13:58):
I love that song.
And then walks out and you're like eating breakfast, like what the F?
Oh, I love to sing that song.
It's my favorite song.
It's just really good with the black fingernails.
You're like, this guy's going to be badass.
And then he dies super quick with the shootout knife.
At least the Russian gave him a run for his money.
Yeah, but it seemed like it was from a different movie.
They just had this footage they used from some previous Punisher thing.
(14:19):
We got to use it.
We spent too much money getting this and too much money feelings.
We destroyed the entire house for this.
Let's keep it in.
Otherwise, I think the rest of the movie all had the same feel to it.
I thought that felt out of nowhere.
And then as soon as it's over, it goes back to feeling like the movie I watched previously.
That five minute segment is its own thing.
Jeremy, I think you're right on that.
It is out of a con to out of a different universe, it feels like.
(14:41):
The I actually enjoy the scene, but doesn't fit the movie.
I enjoy that fight scene.
I think he wasn't wearing the Popeye outfit or that little striped outfit or wherever he's wearing.
Yes, the outfit's 100% my problem.
It's Russian.
If they would even had scenes showing how he got there or anything else,
maybe I wouldn't be bothered.
But they mentioned they bring in the Russian or whatever.
(15:03):
And the next scene is that there's no connection to who this person is.
You just know he's Russian because he looks like a goofball.
It's not good.
And Harry Hek was sort of the same way.
He just shows up.
It's funny how they can find the Punisher so easily.
He's not hiding at all.
He's just not.
He went right up on the score steps and was like, I'm here, bitches, you're going to come get me.
(15:24):
And then he cut out his gravestone and put it on the thing when he was like,
I'm done with waiting for you people and I'm finished.
So he's like peppermint in that regard, the Jennifer Garner girl.
He's like, I'm not hiding from anybody.
What is true that sort of Jeremy, he said he felt like there should have been more.
Sorry, further, he said there should have more to the Harry Hek scene.
Yes.
That's sort of limited.
It's because they ran out of money.
They asked for $66 million to make this movie.
(15:45):
They got 35.
So they had to make a lot of cuts and they used a ton of practical effects,
which we'll talk about later.
So they had to make some serious hard decisions about fight scenes.
And here I've got a quote for you, which I thought was great.
This is describing the Russian scene from the Russian sucks.
Jeremy from movies that Jeremy, I'm sorry about these feelings, my friend.
(16:06):
No.
So on the set, they refer to that one scene, the Russian fight scene as a horrific clown show.
Yeah.
That ties mine is I have the same statement.
I'm going to come off camera and I'm going to say this out loud and say that Russian,
it was not a clown show.
He had a turkey dinner and then he went and fought a Russian and then Rebecca remained,
Stamos took care of him.
Oh, that whole scene.
(16:27):
I forgot they're in the kitchen singing during it.
Like that was what threw you off.
That was the dumb asses of it.
You put a bad guy and you put somebody else who's actually a really good character.
And they're holding hands and singing with Rebecca.
I mean, Stamos that feels completely emu, 100% emu.
Sorry if I offended our emu crowd.
We have emus.
We have female listeners like actual emo.
(16:50):
I don't know if we have emus, although an emo did reach out on his own and create a
whole destiny for himself.
So never understand emus.
That's the insurance commercial, isn't it?
One of the things I know the studio had issues with,
they thought the movie was way too dark.
So he kept asking to make it lighter, more energetic.
So I imagine I don't have any evidence of this, but I imagine the reason why they made
(17:11):
that scene was a little sillier was to make it less dark.
I mean, again, I didn't read the year one Garth Ennis book.
So maybe those neighbors are in there and maybe they are the same characters.
I don't know, but I think they were probably not.
You can tell me I'm wrong, Fergal, but I don't think they could have been
as goofy as they were in this.
Well, remember they used about three or four different books to make this movie.
(17:33):
So there was just a lot of hack and slash.
They didn't just pull from one source material or another.
This was pulled from Garth Ennis from year one, from different books within the four
different kinds of books that Punisher was putting out.
So they just kind of took inspiration where they wanted to.
That's the problem.
That's what they tried to fix in the Ray Stevenson Punisher.
They tried to go with one storyline, Jigsaw, and just go with that one.
(17:53):
This one just kind of gets a little bit all over the place.
And so that's where you get some of the kind of thrown together scenes,
but at least it's not Cemetery Man.
I would love to see a Harry Hek storyline.
That character was very interesting.
Yes, he was.
They should have showed more Harry Hek.
I just think that's a disappointment because he was, he did come in very cool.
Like, have you ever watched the replacement?
(18:13):
Have you guys ever seen that movie?
The Chow Young Fat movie?
The replacement killers?
Got Mia Servino and Chow Young Fat.
He's a super martial arts guy, crushing tiger, hidden dragon guy.
Awesome movie.
When they send in these replacements, or even Electra, when they sent in these
replacements, they were like, oh, I'm going to send in a
speciality killer.
That's an awesome scene, at least the fight scenes.
(18:34):
That's what these are supposed to be.
These specialists are supposed to be.
They're supposed to be specialists.
Or even like that character would fit in like Desperado, right?
That would have been fine in Desperado.
We're totally fine.
It would have been fine in Desperado, but Desperado in its own set of cool characters.
I know.
Danny Trejo was in Desperado.
We should have done this episode on Desperado.
I would have been a hundred percent down for that.
He threw knives inside of a limo.
(18:55):
No one could pull a gun on him.
He just killed everybody.
With knives, so he could reload every time.
Best part about Desperado, no Russian.
Thinking of knives and Russians, you know the part where the Punisher stabs the Russian in the chest?
So there was an accident on set where he actually stabbed him with a real knife.
(19:16):
Well, they had to use it then.
Okay, now I feel like they had to leave it in.
You actually stab a guy, you got to use that footage.
Makes sense.
Kevin Nash, for his apology from Thomas Jane, he just gave him a six pack of beer.
He got him a six pack of beer.
That is Kevin Nash.
Remember, these guys are crazy as long as you don't piss off a wrestler.
Are there any other characters that stood out that you want to talk about?
I think the Sons were, I mean, they pulled those people directly off of some Girls Maxim cover.
(19:38):
They had no, again, another idiot set of situations.
And like when Frank Castle played the undercover, come on, man, really?
That was completely out of, I didn't understand that at all.
So I thought that was interesting.
So can we say that Thomas Jane character number two was a little odd, a little out there?
No, the starting character.
Yeah, see, I didn't read any of the material that this would have even been pulled from.
(20:03):
So I thought it was goofy, but I thought that's how they were trying to make it realistic, right?
You always want to take a comic character and make it relatable to people who maybe didn't read the comics.
So you find something like, oh, he's undercover cop.
He's doing this sting operation.
Okay, fine.
Okay, totally fine with it.
But I did think it was goofy compared to the rest of the movie.
I think it fit right in.
So he's still on that Russian, man.
Still on that Russian.
(20:24):
Sorry, Russia.
So then why don't we talk a lot about a lot of the scenes in this movie?
So why don't we jump into that?
The first big scene, is the sting operation you talked about, Jeremy?
You knew that Thomas Jane was the Punisher.
You've seen the preview for the movie or whatever.
And the fact, I was like, is there like two characters with the same actor?
I couldn't quite, I was like, oh, I see what they're doing.
Because he gets shot.
(20:44):
I mean, the whole thing is he gets shot and you think he's dead, but then, oh wait, it was part of the operation.
He's supposed to take these squibs or whatever and not die.
Fine.
But I did think it was goofy because it's not like, that's not one of the things the Punisher that I knew him for, right?
Where he'd be like, oh, I'm a master of effects.
Like, I think he just shoots people.
But it was, I thought it made the character relatable.
You had to have a reason for him to be targeted by this family.
(21:07):
It gives you the background.
Like this other guy died by accident.
Their goal was not to kill the son of Howard Saint.
It was to capture him, right?
To use the sting to arrest him.
Instead, he gets shot because everything goes wrong or whatever.
But I thought it was fine.
But at first, I was worried that it was going to be one of those deals where there's two people look exactly the same and like the same actress playing two different characters.
I was like, oh, no, I don't want that.
(21:28):
Like a face off scenario?
Yeah, well, not a face off because that's so over the top.
It's fine.
But like, oh, this is the Punisher's twin.
He's really the Punisher's twin.
He's the bad guy.
Like, oh, but that didn't happen.
So that's good.
I've never heard that storyline.
Is this Thomas Jane with like a goatee?
I'm Hank Castle.
I heard, but you guys mentioned face off.
Let's also again mention what an amazing film that was.
(21:52):
I think they played their characters extremely well.
But I do think the beginning scene was a little bit, it was a little bit much for me.
It did set up why I had to go into hiding.
His son getting killed because of a series of botched henchmen with this other kid trying to do his son didn't even look like he belonged in that group of people on that drug buy.
So clearly, that whole situation was kind of thrown together with a different angle because he's supposed to stand out amongst all these people he's doing business with.
(22:17):
And he did.
And then he gets shot.
And then all of a sudden, this wife is like, kill them all.
Kill all of them for our son.
Kill them all.
And then you're like, wow, that's a cold lady, man.
She was grieving.
We all have, you all grieve different ways.
Some of us cry a lot and others murder dozens of people.
(22:38):
Well, it goes from there.
It goes into the family reunion scene with his father from Jaws.
And there was about 30 people there, I guess.
Yeah, this is a whole family.
The entire anyone that's ever been blood related to the Punisher is at this.
That was a bit odd.
I will say that was a bit like they were all there.
Every person and nobody canceled.
(22:59):
Yeah, no one had COVID.
That's how you know it's an old movie.
Nobody canceled.
Nobody said, I just not going to make it.
We're going to keep the cancel line going.
All the planes worked.
Everyone got there.
No delay.
Everybody got there.
And it was a small island.
And then, of course, Rod Steiger leading the show.
And then he just happens to show Thomas Jane is incredibly well modified.
Yeah, what was that?
He's desert eagle pistols.
(23:20):
Look at these beautifully modified $25,000 gold plated.
They'll kick your ass with a thousand.
These all have a bite of a shark type situations,
which is kind of a nod in the nose to the shark.
Well, they both were shark movies.
They were both in shark movies.
Now we disconnected them by six degrees of Kevin Baker.
(23:41):
Well, I think it's really to illustrate that his ability,
knowledge of weapons goes back.
It's his parents showed him how to use weapons.
So he's been learning since a small age how to murder individuals with.
Was his dad special forces?
I don't remember saying that or not.
I just know he had lots of guns.
Well, and it makes sense because then later on when you see the Punisher
kind of modifying these weapons to make them more dangerous,
(24:02):
he has experience doing that.
It's something his dad was a big fan of.
He did it with it.
That's fine.
And the scene also made sense to be like, why does the Punisher have
a whole bunch of guns with him on this island?
Like, well, he doesn't.
This guy has a bunch on this house, so he just conveniently is able to use them
when he needs them.
And also how he survives the whole thing.
I mean, he gets shot in the chest.
I mean, those villains, you got to make sure the body,
(24:23):
you got to watch the body actually die, right?
Or, you know, he's going to come back and get you.
Yeah. Well, they did the same thing that they did like Robocop.
You lighted something on fire, you assume that the explosion killed him
and you walk away.
No, never happens.
Didn't work out for Robocop.
It's going to happen to him too.
You have just made the formula for every horror movie starting with Jason,
Freddie and everywhere in between.
You could put the bullets, you got to do the damage, right?
(24:45):
I mean, at some point, I think the only true killing was the one out of Kingsman
in the first movie when the heads popped off.
At that point, you can rest assured they're dead.
Yeah. No, like in Halloween, you look away.
Don't look away.
Don't look away and say, oh, he's outside.
You know, he's going to be gone when you come back.
What a bad idea.
As an African American, you'll never catch me in a Halloween.
You'll never catch me in a forest.
You'll never catch me being down in a red shirt.
(25:06):
So one of the things I did want to talk about is the torture scene where he
torched him with a popsicle.
And I want to get your guys' opinion on that scene.
Jeremy, I'll let you go first.
I didn't think it fit the character of Punisher, especially by this point.
I mean, this guy is part of the reason that this original thing went bad that
killed this other guy that had his whole family wiped out.
And he basically fakes that he's going to torture him to death by, you know,
(25:29):
all these little tricks and the popsicle stabbing with the popsicles.
He thinks it's so hot, it's cold kind of thing.
I mean, it's fine, but it's not like he was that reserved with anybody else in
this movie, everybody else, no matter how minor the inconvenience in his way was,
he just gunned them down.
And this guy who has a reason to probably kill after he gets the information,
he's like, I was just joshing you.
And he lets him down.
Now we're buds.
(25:50):
We're buds.
He's the Rob Schneider of the movie.
They don't need Rob Schneider.
No, I think Chris is right.
He was the Rob Schneider for some reason.
He was the one that who brought the Saint Son to the movie.
Who brought the Saint Son there.
So he was like the Kaiser Soze of the movie.
He was the idiot savant genius who orchestrated all of it,
(26:10):
probably inherited all the Saint's money when they were all gone.
I would never call Rob Schneider an idiot savant.
The first half, maybe.
What scenes stood out to you guys?
Oh, the Russian scene.
Well, we already talked about the Russian scene.
That did stand out.
Better or worse, it did stand out.
I thought the scene with Harry that we talked about earlier,
(26:33):
the music scene in the diner was really good.
I thought the whole end, 20, 30 minutes,
where it's just the Punisher going after Saint,
or it's one long segment.
The actual, I guess, finishing off of Saint
by tying to the car and dragging him through the lot
while they expose all the cars.
Awesome scene.
Loved it.
(26:53):
But unfortunately, it was tainted because about 45 minutes beforehand,
there was this Popeye fighting scene.
What Popeye fighting scene are you talking about?
When he goes into the place and he's...
He's talking about where the Russian scene is.
The Russian scene.
Oh, come on, man.
You're going to let that kill the end scene of the movie
when he's got Saint.
And he's like, every car is blowing up on him.
(27:14):
It's not about vengeance.
It's about punishment.
And he's tying his legs to the back of it.
He's pulling out the bomb.
That was great.
And then having his son hold the bomb and be like,
you know, those clip walls weigh about three pounds.
Good luck holding that one.
I thought that was a great scene.
But again, another boy band model that just got his ass blown up.
I thought the one that was really...
That probably stands out was when he went into the Saint's building
(27:36):
and he shot up to two guys.
He did it old West style.
He kind of like, lay out, shot him up.
Old West style.
Got his both.
And of course, he would be using his dad, Rod Steiger,
who went after the original shark and used his supercharged pistols.
We got to say that final assault was...
That makes the movie, I think.
Yes.
It did a fantastic job.
But the scene you talk about, where he makes the son hold the mine.
(27:58):
The only weird thing was where he has the bow
when he's shooting from about five feet away.
I don't know why he would do that.
But nonetheless, he's trying to kill Silo or something.
It's not a gun.
He's not good with bows.
He's very bad with bows.
It has to be right there.
Or the C4 hidden inside the champagne bottle,
or under the champagne bottle, rather.
That got rid of a lot of gangsters, by the way.
(28:19):
They were all corralled around that champagne bottle.
That was horrible for everybody, right?
So if you're just a quick tip for anyone that chooses to want to be a gangster,
don't assemble all your people around one person with a bottle.
Disperse them amongst the crowd.
Yes.
Buy many bottles of champagne, not one.
I guess that's the PSA of today's episode.
(28:39):
Buy multiple bottles of champagne when you're celebrating.
Because you never know when there's C4 underneath them.
Now, how do you guys feel about the subplot where
he convinces Saint to murder his best friend and kill his wife?
That wasn't that hard.
That really wasn't that hard.
He was super gay, which is nothing wrong with being gay,
but he was definitely super gay.
(29:01):
And then he was like, and then for some reason,
I guess being a gangster, you don't trust anybody
because he went out like he didn't believe that even the wife knew he was gay.
But she was like, and so yeah, he was just trying to take away what you took away.
That's the whole point of the Punisher.
I'm going to take away what you took away from me.
You guys all talked about at the beginning.
He has nothing left except to do that.
I do this thing, same thing.
I don't kill a bunch of people to prove a point,
(29:22):
but if you've wronged me, I will come back at you tenfold.
And it was a joke I made one time and I said whatever something happens,
and I go over the top, so they ask, go tenfold.
And I was like, you're an idiot.
Stop it.
That was tenfold.
I loved it.
I love the fact that he basically is like, oh yeah, well, here's what I did.
You killed your best friend and your wife.
I tricked you like right as he's about to kill him.
Loved it.
I thought that made it worth it.
(29:43):
The fact that he then even explained it out loud to him.
Like it wasn't just like, yeah, you can watch it.
You know what happened.
He pieced it together like, no, he won't.
I'm going to tell you.
I'm going to tell you what I did.
I thought that was great.
It was great.
I guess the way he set him up, the whole thing was fantastic.
Even the fake fire hydrant to reserve his parking space
so he can come back and put the car back where it belongs.
(30:03):
We used to put in Maryland where we lived,
and it's the only place I've ever had to do this,
but in Maryland during the winter, especially those couple bad winners,
you'd have to put chairs on.
People get pretty serious about their parking space.
They clear out in front of their house.
They do in both directions.
In both, and chairs will start showing up.
Garbage cans will show up.
Folks will get into fights.
They will.
I thankfully live in a place where we have our own spots.
It's blocked off.
(30:24):
You can't just take someone else's thing.
But yes, it does.
It does happen also for parades.
I don't know what it is about this state.
The state loves parades.
For parades, they put out chairs like weeks ahead of time.
It's weird.
I think Philly takes a whole new level.
When I used to work in downtown Philly or Center City Philly,
they would put chairs down, cones down,
(30:46):
and a person would just sit there and wait for the car to come in,
truly guard their spot, even the spots that are illegal spots in the center of the road.
I would assume they did that in probably South Boston as well.
I've watched enough parking wars to know,
don't get caught up in South Boston doing some shit like that.
They do that stuff all the time out there as well.
They got collective neighborhood watchers.
Shotguns.
(31:08):
Now, this movie comes in just over two hours.
Slow, fast, just right.
I've seen it so many times that time doesn't even matter to me at this point.
Watching this movie, you can watch it and you could probably fast forward
to about three quarters of it because it leads and then there are points
where you got to catch in the middle.
I think the interesting thing is, like I said, that next one, that Ray Stevenson one,
(31:28):
you got to watch a little bit, but then it gets also twisted.
By the way, fun fact, have you guys seen Punisher Dirty Laundry?
Have you seen the 2012 short film with Thomas Jane doing his laundry?
Because it literally is a better version of this movie.
And it's much shorter.
It's about 12 minutes long.
It was a mini film that he made in 2012, kind of professionally made.
(31:50):
Punisher doing his laundry, dirty laundry.
It's pretty damn sweet.
It's actually got its own cult following.
Well, that's actually interesting because I was going to say this movie is about
an hour and 48 minutes too long.
So 12 minutes is probably perfect.
It's still the Russian man.
I'm so sorry, my man.
It's not just the Russian.
Okay. And I've had this complaint about every movie that's an origin movie, even Superman.
(32:12):
We talked about the 1978 Superman.
It's like, yeah, it's the origin.
So the first half of this movie is him becoming super.
That's how this felt to me.
I was like, we're 45 minutes in.
We have not seen the Punisher yet.
We've seen his family die 30 minutes in.
So there's 30 minutes of not anything.
And then 50 minutes where he's just kind of flailing around.
He finds the shirt that his son gave him.
That's where the Punisher Lego came from.
(32:33):
All this.
But he doesn't show up to kick ass until 45 minutes into this movie.
And you don't need that.
Anyone watching the Punisher, there's not one person was like, I don't know who this guy is.
I need some background.
Not one person either.
Deep introspective.
That is a very deep introspective.
I think they spent all that time trying to build up saints and Stygre.
(32:55):
I think that's where they had to build up Stygre and then his very innocent wife,
who looked the exact opposite of him.
I give you a picture, anyone to be the wife of his mother.
And it's always the interesting, the timid ladies who end up with these massive big dudes husbands.
What is going on there?
I have no idea what you're talking about, but.
Well, if you look at Thomas, the Punisher's wife, she does not look like a typical leading lady.
(33:20):
Let's just put it to you that way.
She does not look like a typical leading lady.
You have a lot of choices where you could have made the Punisher's wife.
And she does not look like it.
He's complaining about his dead wife?
No, no, I'm not complaining about his dead wife.
Let it be clear, I don't complain about anyone's dead wife, but as a wife choice,
when you meet her, she just does not strike you as the Punisher's wife.
I do have to say, even though that's not his dead wife,
(33:42):
I was happy that they didn't try to make a love angle with Rebecca Romaine Stamos.
I was worried when her boyfriend came and he rescued her or whatever.
I was like, oh, no, we're not going to have like Punisher love scene.
I don't need that.
I don't need that.
I've already had 45 minutes of happy Punisher.
I don't need any more.
Two things. First off, the Punisher's first wife, he wasn't the Punisher at the time.
(34:05):
Right? So that's the FBI agent's wife.
Right? But I think you're right.
I am very happy that there was no love story because he's supposed to be dead inside
and there's no love when you're dead.
So it's good that he basically shut it down.
I mean, she was going for it.
He's like, nope, not happening.
Yeah, I liked that part of it.
Honestly, everything with the neighbors I enjoyed except for the part where they held
(34:28):
hands and sang because it didn't make any sense there.
But other than that, I liked how they kind of helped him out.
They brought him into their little circle.
It made it when they got attacked later on.
It made sense that that's like what pushed him to finally be like, fuck this.
I'm going to take these guys down right now.
I'm done.
These assholes bothered my really nice neighbors.
That's like, okay, I get it.
Like that was all really cool.
But I was glad they didn't have a love angle.
(34:50):
How long did he recover from that serious beating he took by the Russian
before he went and wrecked Holy Hell on St.
Charles?
Does anybody have a window of recovery on that?
He recovered awfully fast.
Just 32 minutes.
It's plot armor.
He doesn't need to recover.
He's a superhero.
I'm just saying there were bruises on his face.
He got his ass whooped.
(35:11):
Jeremy, I'm with you, though.
I think the movie, I mean, we've talked about a thousand times these origin movies.
The buildup is always so slow because I understand what they're trying to do.
They're trying to make you like the character and understand the character.
But that's a problem we really, really had with these origin movies going back years.
I like them better when they just sort of it's flashbacks, right?
Or just jump into the story.
(35:31):
The next Batman movie, please don't make it about how his parents were killed at Grand
Mali.
I don't need to see that for the 10th time.
No, and I can say I can't believe I'm about to say this.
I have something to say about Daredevil is that Daredevil doesn't have 45 minutes of his
backstory.
It's the beginning.
It's some flashbacks.
But other than that, he's Daredevil kind of when the movie starts.
They should have done that with this.
So the one thing I do want to tell you, because I know how much you how much punish you want.
(35:53):
There is a director's cut of this movie with an extra like 30 minutes of footage.
What could you possibly throw in this movie for another 30 minutes to add any more value
or depth to this movie?
Supposedly it's darker, bloodier, and there's just more explosions, more killing.
Who is he going to kill?
Because once he's wiped, he wiped them all out with a claymore and then he just shot
everybody.
You have infinite henchmen.
As I say, there's unlimited gang members.
(36:15):
You could have identified a million gang members.
I was hoping it just wasn't like 30 more minutes with a Russian.
Well, he killed the Russian.
Remember, he did.
You know, he could have had that fight be twice as long so I can roll my eyes twice
as hard.
There's a Russian dancing.
He comes in first and he danced a little bit.
Then the murder.
That would make it awesome.
Actually, I would do that.
(36:36):
I would love to battle dance before we actually fought.
So the effects of this movie, it was pretty much all practical effects.
How did you feel about the effects for it?
I liked it.
I thought that everything did look like practical effects.
There wasn't a whole lot that I thought was goofy.
That's not how those effects look really goofy.
They're over the top or whatever.
I thought the effects were really good.
(36:57):
The only thing I literally was like, but at the same time, it was fine, was towards the
end.
I think we already said we're going to spoil this movie.
So at the end, when he blows up all the cars and it zooms out and it's the Punisher logo,
I was like, oh, like I get what they're aiming for.
But it was just like a bit on the nose.
That was a bit on the nose.
I think they did a good job of throwing that one.
(37:17):
It was fine, but it's like that's where it stabbed me back into.
That's right.
This is a comic movie, right?
Between that and the Russian, those are the two scenes where I was like, because otherwise
I thought it was fine.
Even though it was dragging this parking lot, his cars exploded.
It was on a plane.
And I thought that was cool.
But then just having it zoom out to this really clearly cut Punisher face was like.
(37:38):
It reminds me of Dark Knight Rises where Batman goes and puts a burning sign on the walls.
How much time do you spend?
Yes.
It's exactly what that's it.
That was my point.
That led into my earlier point about how much time Frank Castle recovered before he went
to war with the state family.
And then now he somehow when he before he went in there and wiped them all away, he took
his time to very carefully place those cars and gasoline in the right direction so that
(38:01):
when it started burning, it burned exactly as a symbol.
Maybe it's an illusion of how prepared that man is.
He spends time.
He puts effort into his work.
He really cares.
He really cares.
And there's Batman prepared, so I believe he is slightly prepared, but he is never going
to be Batman prepared.
So for this movie, guys, what did you love about it?
What could they have done better?
(38:22):
Oh, Harry Hacks.
I like the song.
I like Harry Hacks.
I think they should have made that Harry Hacks scene.
They should have started with that song and then give him the 20 minute fight scene.
I actually fully agree.
If they would have removed the Russian completely and just focused all that time.
Remove the Russian.
They could take a picture of them together at the beach.
(38:42):
I don't know.
I didn't need to see him in the movie.
I'm just saying that that Harry Hacks character was much cooler.
I think he made more sense.
I would have much rather seen a cool fight with him.
They could have had a shoot off.
They could have a bunch of cool stuff, but they didn't.
And instead, you got to watch this WrestleFest with Kevin Nash through walls of the house,
which was unnecessary.
That's what I didn't like.
I thought it was just too slow.
There's too much build up.
(39:04):
There's too much need to go back and explain like this is why Frank's so mad.
You don't need to explain why Frank's so mad.
You don't need 45 minutes to say like, look how happy he was.
Don't need any of that.
Five minutes.
Five minutes with his family would have been enough.
They could have skipped everything.
They could have skipped everything.
But like, hey, we're at the beach now because I just finished this.
I'm on vacation.
That's all you needed.
That's it.
You see his family.
(39:25):
Everyone's happy.
Whatever.
Then he kills everybody.
He gets to come on and see his dead wife.
That's all you needed to explain why he's so mad.
And instead, we got 45 minutes of it.
Other than that, I thought the rest of the movie, other than the Russian, which I've
complained about, is actually fine.
There's just too much time at the beginning.
And the Russian scene is awful.
Yeah, I think the movie, it's a good, it's a decent action movie.
I guess there's, you take the punisher out of it.
(39:47):
It's not bad as an action flick.
It's got a lot of great explosions.
It's got some good fight scenes.
I think to make it better, they should not have been afraid with going dark.
I mean, it's a rated-art movie.
They should really embrace that and really gone after it.
I think if they, I felt like they wanted to be a little comic, accurate with the Russian, maybe.
Maybe just don't put them in a striped, red and white shirt.
(40:08):
Make them look like Popeye and just get rid of the Italian music in the background.
I think you probably would have enjoyed that scene better, Jeremy.
Yeah.
Well, you wouldn't have had the dancing around the kitchen then.
Unneeded.
Then you wouldn't have had the spaghetti or Rebecca Romaine with the whole thing.
And they wouldn't have created that amazing family-like experience that company, that
Christmas dinner.
I think the family experience was established when he saved her from her ex-boyfriend.
(40:31):
I don't think they, I think that he just removed the spaghetti scene.
They could have made the Nash section bigger.
Oh, it's not Nash, the hairy section.
See, that was a true word.
We've got to add the rest.
Spetsnast, that's what he was.
Spetsnast, that's Russian special forces.
Extend the fight scene with the guy, the guitar.
He was really neat.
(40:51):
He was fun.
But really embrace the fact you're rated-art.
Embrace the fact that you can get gritty with it.
And you don't need to be funny.
No one reads The Punisher because it's funny.
I can't imagine you're like, you know what, I want a good laugh today.
Let's read some Punisher.
I don't think that's a thing.
Fergal correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't.
So for me, it likes a good action flick and just make it less comic booky.
(41:14):
It would have been a much better film.
A sequel was only made in, you sort of brought the Dirty Laundry short
as the only sequel that was ever made for this movie.
Direct Thomas Jane sequel, yes.
It's the only one.
It's actually a YouTube only short that you can find and you can just look that up on YouTube.
Should they have made a full sequel after this movie?
Not at all.
They did.
They tried the Ray Stevenson jigsaw one.
(41:35):
They overcorrected.
I think is what I would probably say in that one.
I think they just slightly overcorrected on that one.
No, nope.
I mean, I would have liked to see something else with The Punisher, maybe.
But after watching this, I didn't need any more straight Punisher movies.
I like him as a side character with another movie.
He can show up in a Spider-Man movie.
I know it wouldn't make any sense for who owns rights or whatever.
(41:57):
It doesn't matter.
Ignore all that.
If he would have shown up as like that gray character who Spider-Man has teamed up with,
but then he has to kind of turn against him because he knows he's going to do the wrong thing.
That's how I've always liked The Punisher.
So he would have been fine.
Now that he's established, you have his backstory.
You know why he's so angry.
We don't need any more Punisher movies.
Going forward, the MCU, I mean, are they going to introduce him into it?
(42:17):
And he's kind of not with his Netflix shows, but I didn't like the Netflix show for The Punisher.
I just don't see him as a main character.
John Barenthal, he's a huge part of the Daredevil Reborn story.
So I mean, he's a huge...
So I mean, if you go into...
I've been checking on this one a lot, the Doomsday, the Secret Wars, Battleworld.
And they've actually got...
(42:38):
And again, this is just conjecture at this point, but part of the Marvel's next success,
because they're taking on James Gunn, is they're trying to go back and bring up that nostalgia.
So you probably will see Thomas Jane.
You probably will see a Ray Stevenson.
You might see a John Barenthal.
You'll definitely see different variants all in one place.
Well, for the MCU, I hope they stop doing variants. It's getting very annoying.
(43:03):
Well, that was catchy.
I think we still got a few more multiverse sagas to go through.
We certainly do.
So should people go out and seek this movie out?
You don't have to. It comes on TNT every Sunday at like one o'clock.
It's also free on Tubi, as we mentioned.
I would say you don't need to hunt this down.
I mean, I guess if you're a big Punisher fan, maybe it's well worth looking into.
And if you're like, I have to see a Punisher movie,
(43:23):
I'd pick this one over the Dolph Lundgren Punisher.
But otherwise, I don't know. This is a skip for me.
I think if you're looking for an action flick that you want to put on the background,
it's not a bad one to deal with.
There are better ones out there, but I don't think it's one you need to go track down.
So before we get our views, I really appreciate it if you are a listener.
You can go find us on Apple and Spotify. Leave us a five star review.
It's great to support the show.
(43:44):
And if you help new listeners discover us and let's not keep the show a secret.
So guys, how do you review this movie?
I would give this a half thumbs up.
And because our good friend Jeremy is beating up on the Russians so often,
my thumb was three quarters, but now it has gone down to a half.
Because now that song is in my a done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done, done.
(44:04):
So now I'm going to be listening to that all night, whether I want to or not.
This might be the lowest rated movie I've had so far on this.
I'm giving this a quarter thumb, like a quarter down thumb.
It's not totally trash.
It's fine.
You mentioned if you had it in the background, like, sure.
But there are better things to have out in the background.
(44:24):
If there was something else going on with The Punisher and you're like,
I wish I knew more about Punisher.
This is a totally acceptable way to explain who The Punisher is.
It's fine.
Is it a good movie on its own?
No, I would not rewatch this.
I have no interest in seeing this again.
Wow. I was expecting like, you know, half a C4.
No, no, it doesn't even get a funny answer.
I just did not care for it.
So I'd probably go about half thumb.
For me, it's a decent action movie.
(44:46):
People should go see the Russian scene and see why Jeremy hates it so much.
I bet if you saw it on its own, you'd be like, what's wrong with this guy?
But if you watch the first hour of this movie before then,
and you're like, where did this come from?
What is this?
Why is this extra from who frame Roger Rabbit in this movie?
Just talked about that last night.
I was on Etsy looking for that gun.
(45:06):
My brother put that on a group post.
I was like, I need to find that gun from Roger.
It just became a thing.
And he's like, he's egging me.
I was like, you need to buy this.
And I just started looking at it.
It's been on my phone.
I'm literally looking at as we talk right now.
It is such a cool little weapon.
But I'm sorry.
We completely digress to who frame Roger Rabbit, one of the best movies of all time.
Yeah, that gets a thumbs up.
That gets thumbs up, too.
So guys, I do have a mailbag for us.
(45:28):
But if you are listening, want to give us a shout out or send us a comment
or just have us read something on the air, just make sure you go to
movie-smash.com on the bottom.
There's a form.
Just fill it out and send that in.
But guys, I do have one for you.
This actually is actually targeted specifically to you to Fergal.
So awesome.
OK, so this is from LK.
They didn't even put their full name onto it.
(45:48):
Well, it's going to be a fun one.
Is this Mean Tweets?
I love it.
Let's take it.
Great show, guys.
I love everyone's different take on the movies.
I did not realize Atomic Blonde was a comic.
You guys are so funny.
I've got to ask Fergal, sometimes you do a funny voice during the intro.
It sounds like you're trying to lure small children to an unmarked van.
Are you doing it on purpose?
Well, let me take this in a two part answer, if I may.
(46:11):
OK, first off, I try never to lure small children to a van.
Secondly, that funny voice would be the amazing voice of Fergalicious, who is delicious.
So we'll just leave that there.
And that is our mailbag.
So guys, as we head out, where can people find you?
They can get my nerd on and get my nerd on and got on our Facebook page,
(46:33):
our Instagram page, our TikTok page.
You got all kinds of neat stuff out there.
And as I said, we're working our way back.
And as always, I'm on Retrovania.net, where our podcast and YouTube
channel and our Twitch channel, all of that stuff is there talking about retro games.
And as mentioned, the podcast, the Subtastic's are going to be trying to do some road shows
(46:54):
this summer to get ready to try to do some heavier road appearances this fall.
So if you like Subtastic's, you can find us subtastic.bandcamp.com.
And what states are you hitting?
Well, nothing is booked yet, for sure.
So somewhere up and down the East Coast, though, we live on the East Coast.
We're going to have to make these long weekends or maybe one solid week,
because I don't have a lot of time.
So I mean, like that sounds dark.
(47:15):
You guys are actually going to do shows?
You guys are going to do shows?
No, we play out now.
We play out now, but just locally.
But we're trying to go out.
As a band or as your show?
No, as a band, as a band.
I'm not Retrovania.
This is Subtastic's.
You guys need to do one of those Lollapalooza events, man.
Well, I would wish we were in any way big enough to do so.
So we'll see.
We'll see how this goes.
I would like to personally bring this out.
(47:38):
Jeremy Pompeteer needs to be at Lollapalooza.
Whoever's listening to this needs to make that happen.
Yeah, as the coordinator who's listening, we know you are.
Book Jeremy.
He gets busy pretty fast, from what I understand.
And for me, you can always find me over at All Fatal Creations.
We're always over there building some piece of nerd furniture.
I want to thank you, our listener, for spending some time with us today.
If you have any thoughts about The Punisher and how this is probably the best Punisher out there,
(48:00):
it is the best.
Send us a note over at movie-smash.com and we'll see you in a couple weeks.
Thank you again for listening and I hope you enjoy the show.
This has been Movie Smash with Chris Roberts, Jeremy Pompeteer, and Fergal Amayo, produced
by me, Chris Roberts, executive produced by Off Panel Creations, LLC.
Movie clips provided by their respective studios.
You can rate and review the show at Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
(48:23):
You might even find your review read on a future episode.
Got a question for us?
Visit us at movie-smash.com and send us a note.
It too can be read on a future episode.
If you want to see more of this, check out the show's website.
It too can be read on a future episode.
If you haven't already, please subscribe to Movie Smash wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Quote, the Russian sucks, Jeremy from Movie Smash.
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