Frank Castle is spinning out. Folded in half by depression, grief and trauma he works out constantly in a barren apartment in a rough neighbourhood, working up the courage to kill himself and surrounded by ghosts. Until a visit from Ma Gnucci (Juduth Light) gives him the only thing he wanted and the last thing he needed; a purpose. Frank murdered her entire family. Now she’s set every criminal in the neighbourhood on him.

Directed by Marucs Reinaldo Green and co-written by Jon Bernthal, One Last Kill is a very odd, not always successful watch that’s not been especially well received despite being the first time the character has been out on his own in the Disney+ era.

The most tiresome reason for that is the thing that’s starting to dog Marvel’s heels: continuity. I’ve talked before about how the glacial pace of the Multiverse Saga and the countless characters set up and then abandoned has burned a lot of the good will they’ve built up. That lack of patience has been expressed in the most tiresome, but annoyingly understandable, way here. Frank is in a literal different place to when we last saw him and there’s no hint of how he moves from here to a certain friendly neighbourhood. That works for this story but oddly not for its audience. Frank Castle is nothing but scar tissue and PTSD at this point and it makes perfect sense that he’d come apart at the seams again and take himself off the board in the fight against Mayor Fisk. But when you’ve connected work for so long, not even having a mention of the stories that bookend this feels churlish even if it’s understandable.

Move that aside, and the other problems become identifiable and gain a little more context. We can assume that the near war in the neighbourhood Frank’s in is because of the Mayor abandoning it and Frank removing the Gnuccis, something which is said out loud in a news broadcast. Nonetheless, the astonishing levels of violence even before the hit is put out play dangerously close to the sort of ’70s exploitation thrillers that birthed Castle and the intensely racist assumptions about working class neighbourhoods that dog society even today.  The moment where Frank walks, in slow motion, past five crimes at least three of which are violent, is dangerously close to the sort of thing that would make Michael Winner break out the directing chair and celebratory racism and cigars. The necessary tension of the character, swinging from horribly broken tragic figure to one-man death machine, doesn’t help the whiplash. Neither does a moment of astounding animal cruelty that seems to exist only to put a crowd-pleasing button on the special when the thug involved is executed. As others have said, this feels weirdly, and unpleasantly, disconnected from the stories sitting tight on each side of it. It’s ironic then that this is the one time that a little extra connectivity would actually help, even if it was a single line mention of Fisk, the AVTF or just why it’s got this bad.

Outside these issues, there’s a lot that works here. Jon Bernthal is a painfully honest emotional actor and Frank Castle is nothing but emotion. His grief is abject, his rage and disgust doubly so. Bernthal plays Frank as what he should be; a barely functional madman all too aware of what he is. The best moment in the special sees Frank dejectedly walk past these atrocities only to lock eyes with the Punisher walking towards them, eyes bright with dark purpose. The duality of the man is always one of the strongest elements of him and it lands well here.

The action inevitably does too and there’s an extended fifteen-minute sequence that’s one of the best action beats Marvel have put on TV for a long time. Bernthal and his stunt team do excellent work, and there’s a unique tone to it, one part John Wick, one part The Raid as Frank fights his way out of his building with brutal grace and innovation. The supporting cast are impressive too, with Deborah Ann Woll continuing her absolute tear with a great cameo as a hallucination of Karen Page. The typically brilliant Andre Royo shines as a local coffee shop owner and John Douglas Thompson and Judith Light also excel in roles that needed to be much bigger for this to work. The former is a homeless vet whose dog is murdered, the latter is Ma Gnucci, a seething ball of rage and the main villain. She leaves the special alive, and a lot of folks have cited this as a failing too. It’s hard not to read this as a pilot for a new TV show, and Ma Gnucci is a major part of what seems to be a set up without a payoff. Once again, continuity rears its ugly head.

Verdict: The result is an enormously competent one off that can’t shake the feeling that it’s a chapter zero rather more than a complete story. The acting’s great, the direction is great and the heart and bruised soul of it is there. But either this one needed more time in the oven or more time in general because for all its strengths, this is one target the Punisher doesn’t quite hit. 7/10

Alasdair Stuart

 

Punisher: One Last Kill is on Disney + now.