Ruthless vigilante Frank Castle, also known as The Punisher, sets his sights on an out-of-control mob boss called Billy Russoti. When “Beautiful Bill” is left disfigured by Castle, he is hell-bent on revenge in his new guise; Jigsaw. But in his attempts to bring a mob gang to justice, Castle inadvertently kills an innocent man. Wracked with guilt, he tries to help the dead man’s family, but brings them to the attention of Russoti and his thugs. Castle has to destroy him and his army if they are to have any chance of survival. But with the “Punisher Task Force” on his tail and the FBI unable to help him, he has to go it alone…

The movie looks as cheap as chips; shot on grainy film in grimy locations that suit the hopeless world Castle lives in. The scene is set by green-filtered close-ups of broadcasts telling us how the local Mafia don escaped justice and how the world is going to hell in a hand-basket. The Punisher’s underground base is blue-filtered, daylight shots look bleached-out and fights are choppy, but not excessively so. Alexander is good at keeping the pacing swift, not that there’s much space for exposition between the face-offs. So the film steams through the hundred-and-three minute running-time and is rarely less than entertaining. She also references the comic book origins of the movie by framing shots so they look like comic strip panels. But she struggles with trying to inject an emotional dimension into the plot. Castle’s need to protect the wife and daughter of a man he killed is clumsily expressed as is his own tragic back-story. And although the film is tongue-in-cheek, the director fosters a melodramatic acting style that is often a bar to believability.

Castle is the usual strong but silent hero with a background in the Special Forces that makes him a one man army. And of course he has a secret subterranean lair and a load of sidekicks who provide him with information and weapons. These include buffoonish police detective Martin Soap and technical wizard Micro. The villains are the usual comic bunch of psychopaths; leader Billy/Jigsaw is in the same mould as Batman’s nemesis The Joker – a disfigured mob guy sent off the deep end by his injures, his brother Loony Bin Jim, whose name tells you everything you need to know and roll-call of interchangeable, disposable thugs. As is standard in comic book adaptations, the women are badly written damsels in distress with nary a personality between them. The dialogue is riddled with portentous proclamations and over-thought quips like “Let me put you out of my misery!” which probably sounds okay in the context of a comic strip, but is ludicrous spoken out loud.

Dash Mihok is also guilty of coarse acting as “Punisher Task Force” leader Martin Soap. He’s a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, lumbering, gormless buffoon. But he has reasonable timing which sells the comedy. Colin Salmon is deep-voiced, deadpan and hard as nails as FBI Agent Paul Budiansky. Meanwhile Doug Hutchison (familiar to fans of “The X-Files” as Jeffrey Tooms) does exactly what it says on the tin as Loony Bin Jim. There’s no subtlety to be found as the antsy, ultra-violent mental patient. But he at least commits to the role. Julie Benz is insipid as damsel-in-distress Angela, but she has thankfully dropped the squeaky voice that annoys me so much in “Dexter”.