Here’s my The Punisher: One Last Kill Review which stars Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle aka The Punisher and is now streaming on Disney+ from Marvel Studios!
This special one-shot was directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and written by Jon Bernthal and Green and gives us an idea of what’s going on with The Punisher aka Frank Castle in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The show features the former Netflix and now MCU version of Castle which first appeared in 2017 to 2019. In this one-shot, Castle is on the brink of throwing away his life of violence and brutality but is once again thrust into this life with a new conflict with crime lord Ma Gnucci.
The special also stars Deborah Ann Woll, Jason R. Moore, and Judith Light who plays Ma Gnucci.
The entire “film” feels like a really good miniseries book if you convert it into a comic book. It’s a well-rounded story that leaves us with Frank returning to his “calling” and introducing a new antagonist for his war on crime. But the comic book doesn’t feel like it ends with that. It actually, for me, really felt like a comic book the moment we catch up with Frank. Haunted and tormented by his inner demons, he hears voices in his head telling him to quit and live a normal life and that torment drives him to initially do just that.
Jon Bernthal is a generational talent, and he continues to prove to us that when you give him a character that resonates with him to some degree, he will drag out the good stuff, and that’s perfectly encapsulated in his work here in “One Last Kill”. We already saw the good he was as Castle back in his Netflix days and we get to see that shine once more. Going through emotions like a kid goes through chocolate in the fridge. Quick and seamless. But my personal favorite in his performance is when he crashes out because Frank crashes out hard.
Judith Light as Ma Gnucci was pretty cool, too. Of course, for book readers, we already know what will happen to the crime boss but here, we get an introduction. It’s good writing, too, because they turn her from a 2D villain who just wants Frank dead into a mother and a wife who’s been wronged and can seek revenge.
The one-shot not only reinvigorates the Punisher corner of the MCU but also probably ties it neatly into the growing “street level” superheroes, including Spider-Man, Daredevil, and the rest of the Defenders who are also set to return in Daredevil: Born Again season 3. And rather than write it and play it out like an entire movie, it serves more as a prologue for things to come. And you actually feel that it’s a prologue (even when its titled “One Last Kill”) or rather the warning shot into something big that Disney+ might and should invest in.
Speaking of Spider-Man, this could also serve as a warm-up for Frank’s big screen appearance in this year’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day which stars Tom Holland which is also heavily rumored to have big set pieces involving Frank, Spidey and Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk.
I also like the structure for this project, highlighting the world of violence and death that spirals out of control with the absence of somebody who can do something. Not only do we see that world, we even follow Frank Castle wallow in that same feeling of helplessness until by the end, we see that there’s some sense of order. Case in point, that punk who killed a dog (yes, they actually went there) getting his comeuppance at the end and being the last thing viewers see.
Overall, I thought that The Punisher: One Last Kill was good. The only two things I want to flag was the misleading title and that much-maligned incomplete VFX which made the rounds on social media upon the release. Other than that, I’m good and every Marvel fan who is familiar with Frank’s MO would also say the same.
The Punisher: One Last Kill is now streaming on Disney+.
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