In Punisher: War Zone, The Late, Great Ray Stevenson Played The Definitive Frank Castle
Ray Stevenson understood the assignment.
From his early days as a dashing leading man on HBO's "Rome" to his late period as a consistently surprising character actor, the Irish actor was always a pleasure to watch. Sometimes, he'd steal the show on a glossy TV series like "Black Sails." Sometimes, he'd steal the show as the comedic relief in a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. And sometimes, he'd steal the show in a low-budget genre movie that only cinematic junk food aficionados have seen. But he always stole the show. He always understood the assignment. He always delivered.
Stevenson has passed away at the age of 58, and he leaves behind a fascinating and varied body of work. But one role stands out amongst them all, and it represents his greatest attempt at mainstream stardom. It didn't work. The movie bombed. It was a critical failure, too. But time has been kind to it, and time has been kind to his performance as well.
Yes, I'm talking about "Punisher: War Zone," the most underrated and aesthetically fascinating Marvel Comics adaptation ever made. And Stevenson's work as violent vigilante Frank Castle is key to why the whole thing works.
The straight face in a cartoon world
Unleashed upon largely baffled audiences in 2008, director Lexi Alexander's "Punisher: War Zone" has the garish aesthetic of Joel Schumacher's "Batman & Robin" and the jaw-splintering violence of the trashiest, sleaziest '80s action movie you can dream up. It's an intentionally off-putting film, one that rubs your nose in its cartoonish gore and its neon-soaked hellhole of a world, thumping its chest and shouting "Are you not entertained?" All the while, its title character dispatches armies of criminals with the tenacity and creativity of Jason Voorhees in a particularly gnarly "Friday the 13th" movie.
It's the closest any 21st century mainstream action movie has come to replicating the dizzying nastiness and excess of Paul Verhoeven's "RoboCop." It's a low-key masterpiece, especially in the age of the squeaky clean, Disney-sanitized Marvel Cinematic Universe.
But it only works because Ray Stevenson understands the damn assignment. Stevenson's Frank Castle is a character who walks into a landscape that looks like it was built out of primary colors and cocaine, and he doesn't smirk; who strolls through a live-action cartoon like he's Bob Hoskins in an ultra-violent "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"; and who exists side-by-side with actors playing to the cheap seats, going so big that they seem ready to stomp on skyscrapers. Yet he underplays it all to the point where he feels downright naturalistic.
In "Punisher: War Zone," Stevenson's Frank Castle is straight man to a world turned upside-down.
A vital performance
There was surely a temptation for Ray Stevenson to play bigger emotions, to make his Frank Castle, his Punisher, empathetic and understandable. That's what Thomas Jane did in the previous live-action take on the character, and Jon Bernthal leaned into that angle with great success when he played the character on Netflix. But Stevenson takes the trickier angle, one that requires that unique kind of screen charisma where audiences can't take their eyes off you even when you're playing something so anti-human. Every "Punisher" story tells us that Frank Castle is a man who is dead to the world, a man with nothing to lose, a killing machine with no regard to human life and an unstoppable thirst for violence. Only Stevenson captures that.
And again, he does that while existing in a world so outrageous that one could call it a cartoon without blinking. In a world where everyone is an outrageous character, his commitment to an understated realism makes him feel out of place. It sells us wholly on the idea that this guy is out of step with reality, that he has dedicated his entire life to revenge and violence. It's a bold choice, and the film's very excess could overshadow its leading man. But Stevenson is too good to let that happen. His intentional blankness, in a world that is otherwise anything but blank, is utterly terrifying.
Most superhero performances are built upon likability. You like Tony Stark because he's funny. You like Captain America because he's earnest. You like Peter Parker because he's vulnerable. But you don't like Ray Stevenson's Frank Castle. You fear him. You're disgusted by him. You can't take your eyes off him. "Punisher: War Zone" is a middle finger to the MCU that was created before the MCU was even a thing. And Ray Stevenson's extended digit casts a long and memorable shadow.