In an attempt to bridge the gap between Daredevil: Born Again and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Marvel has dropped their latest special presentation; The Punisher: One Last Kill. The 50-minute adventure follows Frank Castle fighting off the city’s criminals, who are all hunting the bounty on his head.
Marvel’s special presentations so far have booth been short and sweet adventures that tell a fun, interesting story in a very limited runtime. In the case of One Last Kill, this is both a blessing and a curse. Let’s start with the blessing; if you’re looking for a hit of action filled with blood, guts and gore, this has it all. Once the setup is over with, it’s just one long non-stop sequence of Frank Castle killing nameless criminals in increasingly brutal ways. It’s essentially a more gritty and brutally violent version of John Wick, right down to the premise. There’s an insane variety of action for such a short project and a level of gore that makes sense for the character; as in it’s not bloody in a way that doesn’t make sense. It’s high-octane and fast paced, full of gun combat and hand-to-hand fights that are pieced together to make one extended action sequence bookended by character-building moments.
This is where the curse of the short runtime comes into play. This special has the roots of a really compelling character-centric story dealing with PTSD, grief and facing the consequences of your actions. It touches on all of the above, but only as much as you can in such a condensed amount of time. There’s some great ideas here that could have been emotionally-impactful and absolutely gripping if explored over the course of a feature-length or season-length project. Due to the need to pack it with action, these scenes are severely limited and somewhat rushed. That’s not to say they’re bad moments; they’re thoroughly enjoyable, they just could have been so much more impactful.
That being said, nothing can be taken away from Jon Bernthal’s performance. The man is a wonderful actor who commits 110% to his characters, and completely disappears into this version of Frank Castle. His performance is raw and full of grit, bringing out both the violent and compassionate sides of the character, and showing how the balance of the two (however skewed) is what makes Frank Castle. He does a lot in a short amount of time, selling the brutality of the special across every key moment.
In the end, The Punisher: One Last Kill is packed with fun action and shockingly gory kills that push the boundaries of the MCU’s mostly family-friendly nature. There’s some moments of emotional character building, but not enough to really flesh out Castle’s journey. The purpose of this special is to get Castle from his mental state in Daredevil: Born Again to where he is in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, all with a little action along the way, and it accomplishes that very well.
7.5/10
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