Punisher: One Last Kill Review

0:00 This is a dyna Mic Network podcast. Hi, welcome to the Dynamic Dual podcast. Ron Tomatoes Approved showed that reviews superhero films and series through the lens of the DC and Marvel fandoms. I'm Jonathan and I'm his twin brother Joseph, and you guys are in luck. This month, we are dropping two episodes. Of course, we will be reviewing the Supergirl movie in our next one, but before that, we were reviewing Punisher one Last Kill, the special presentation that Marvel dropped on Disney Plus that was only an hour long. Well, yeah, all special presentations run about forty five minutes. If you listen to our last review of Daredevil Born Against season two, you know that we were initially gonna kind of merge these two reviews.

0:54 But Punisher one Last Kill was so damn good that I knew that I just had to dedicate a whole episode to it. So that's why you're kind of getting like a bonus episode this month. Yeah, initially with thot that PUNATURER one Last Kill was going to tie into the events of Daredevil Born Against season two, that's not the case. Spoiler alert kinda not really, So we thought this deserved its own episode. But before we get into the review, our AI co host AJ nine K has a quick message for our listeners, so listen up. Why Hello there. Be sure to tune into the other shows in the Dynamite podcast network, including the Console Combat podcast, where host John and Dean simulate battles between popular video game characters. Over on the Max Destruction podcast, hosts Scotti and Gilly pitch your favorite action heroes from film and television against each other, and on the Senjo World podcast, host Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between fan favorite anime and manga characters. Visit Dynamic Podcasts dot com or click the link in our show notes to listen to all the shows in the Dynamite podcast network. Pit Pip Cheerio, Thanks AJ nine K.

1:57 If you remember from our last episode when we reviewed Dirt V Born Again season two, we discussed a lot of the characters that appeared in the comic books, and then we asked you guys, who you thought would make a good matchup. We did get a lot of solid responses in terms of Daredevil adjacent characters that we still have yet to do duels with. For this episode, we thought the best response was Ravager death Strokes daughter versus Typhoid Mary, who was a Daredevil villain. Yeah. Typhoid Mary was in the Iron Fist Netflix series season two. Yeah, she was played by Alice Eve. She was adapted in that show as well as semi adapted in the Electra movie. That version was called Typhoid and the powers were completely wrong.

2:37 She had kind of like a decayed touch if you remember, she like kissed Electra and like almost killed her. So only part of the movie I have not forgotten. So yeah, Typhoid Mary has been adapted a few times. I don't think Ravager has been adapted to screen at all, though. No, she was in the Titan show. What are you talking about? Uh oh, the death Stroke season right? Yeah, yeah, I did not watch that. I only started at season three with Titans. Oh, that's right. You could listen to our reviews of that show by going back into our archive. But Jonathan, I don't know much about Ravager besides the fact that she's death Strokes daughter. Right. She's actually the third child of death Stroke. She's the youngest I believe her name is Rose Wilson, and she's a volatile teen Titans rival turned to ally. She was trained by both Death Stroke and Night Wing. She's a deadly martial artist and swordswoman with enhanced strength, speed, agility, reflexes, healing, and like a combat precognition. Okay, so basically just like her dad. Yeah, pretty much. Well, Typhoid Mary. Her abilities depend on the personality that she currently has because she has dissociative identity disorder.

3:44 All right, she's like crazy Jane, right, She's a mutant. Her real name is Mary Walker. Her most notorious personality is called Typhoid Mary, who has pyrokinesis, and she could also become Bloody Mary, who is a telekinetic who uses like lots of knives and shit. She's a recurring assassin for the Kingpin and she's primarily a daredevil villain, though she has been his lover on occasion. So basically we'repitating these characters against each other because they're both crazy assassins. Correct. Yes, don't love the superpowers that Typhoid Mary has, but I guess they're not consistent. No, they're not. And I tried to kind of like average things when it came to the stats. I didn't incorporate, like the armor that she wears when she's mutant and zero or anything like that, that's when the Walker personality is taken over. But anyway, let's find out who won AG nine K the results. Please, hey, you are sir, all right? The winner between Ravager and Typhoid Mary is Ravager I keep fucking sucking. Out of one thousand simulated matches, Ravager won five hundred and forty seven of the duels over Typhoid Mary's win rate of forty five point three percent. In the end, even though like Typhoid Mary had like a lot of brisatile powers, Ravager was a better fighter, had fighting precognition, and has her durable armor. Is she's essentially Wolverine in the same way that Death Show kids. So it makes sense to me. Oh, you mean, like because they have a healing factor and stuff. Yeah. Well, let's move a fuck on from that segment. And before

5:16 we get into the review, though, let's give a quick breakdown of the comic book histories of characters that appear in Punisher one Last Kill in a segment called Who's who? Okay, So, in Punisher one Last Kill, obviously is the Punisher, whose real name is Frank Castle. He was the son of Sicilian immigrants in Queens. After leaving the seminary because he could not forgive evil, he joined the Marines, trained in reconnaissance, sniper operations, airborne tactics, and underwater demolition, and served multiple tours in Vietnam. When Frank returned home, his wife, Maria and their children were murdered in Central Park after witnessing a mob execution. With police corruption preventing justice, Frank became the Punisher and began a one man war on organized crime.

6:00 After finally dying after many decades, he was revived into the body of his younger self and continued his campaign. Now, the Punisher has no superhuman powers, but is highly trained in hand to hand combat, knife fighting, firearms, explosives, military intelligence, reconnaissance, infiltration, assassination, extraction, camouflage, stealth, and field medicine, as an expert marksman with handguns, rifles, automatic weapons, shotguns, bows, throwing knives, and he's an expert strategist. Also appearing in Punisher One Last Kill is Ma Nucci now Isabella Nucci, was the matriarch of the Nucci crime family, a mafia like organization with major control over New York's illegal activity and influence over the mayor and police commissioner.

6:43 After the Punisher killed her sons Eddie, Bobby, and Carlo to announce his return to the underworld, Ma hired mercenaries to kill the Punisher, but he repeatedly outsmarted them and dismantled her organization. While pursuing the Punisher, Ma Nucci and her men cornered him inside the Central Park Zoo, and despite being outnumbered, he killed her soldiers and fed her polar bears. Ma managed to survive, but she lost both of her arms and legs, and she was confined to a wheelchair. More bitter and irritable than ever before, she placed a ten million dollar bounty on the Punisher, hiring a villain known as the Russian to finish him. A Frank barely survived the encounter, but he managed to kill the Russian, and he returned to Manucci with the Russian's head, before burning down the Nucci mansion with her inside and finally appearing in Punisher When last kill is Barrakuda, who served as Mannucci's assistant in this special Barrakuda was raised in Boca Raton, Florida, where childhood abuse and extreme violence shaped him early after gouging out another child's eyes and later maiming an attacker in juvenile detention, he was recruited into a military program for troubled youths. He received full US Army Special Forces training and became a Green Beret, serving in brutal black Ops missions before leaving the military for organized crime. Barrakuda became a feared mercenary and criminal enforcer, eventually hired to kill The Punisher. He survived being shot point blank, mutilated and left in shark infested waters, later returning to target Frank Castle's allies and Frank's infant daughter,

8:13 who was unknowingly conceived with CIA agent Catherine O'Brien. Barracuda possesses near superhuman strength, elite hand to hand combat skill, advanced marksmanship, survival training and phrebvious and airborne training, stealth, infiltration and demolitions. Similar to the Punisher, his weapons included firearms, explosives, knives, machetes, rocket launcher's body armor, and a hockey mask. And that's it. Yeah, that is way too much backstory for a character who didn't even have a single line in this special or did he know, But that's not a spoiler, is it? No, Oh, this thing didn't happen. Yeah, that's definitely not a spoiler.

8:54 All right, let's go ahead and move into the main event of this episode, where we review the latest Marvel Studios by presentation. Punisher One Last Kill, All right. Punisher One Last Kill is a forty five minute Marvel special presentation directed by Marcus Green and starring John Burnhaal, who returns to the role of the Punisher after an appearance in Daredevil Born Against season one, two seasons of his own Netflix series, and his debut in Netflix's Daredevil season two.

9:35 In this TV special, Frank Castle tries to cope with finally avenging his family's murder after killing the last of those linked to the tragedy. Set in the crime written neighborhood of Little Sicily, New York, which is actually not a real place. Frank is pulled back into the fight by ma Nucci, the dnia of the Nucci crime family. So This is the third of Marvel's special presentations, following Werewolf by Night and The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday special, all of which clock in under an hour. The short run time of the television specials has never really been a problem for me because I didn't really feel the runtime until now, because I wish Punisher One Last Kill was a full length feature. It probably should have been. I loved every minute of it, and I think it's the most successful on screen solo project for the Punisher ever.

10:20 Oh yeah, it was better than the Punisher movie with Thomas Jane. It was better than Punisher War Zone. I would say, you're right. There definitely wasn't enough runtime on this. I really do like Marvel special presentations. I think this is the best one. If they're going to keep doing special presentations, my hope is that they're all Punisher one shots and it happens like once a year. I mean, if you're not gonna make it serious, at least do that for me because this was dope. It's kind of interesting that some of the most successful Punisher projects happened to be shorts like this, Punisher Will Less Kill, and like Punisher Dirty Laundry, which was a short starring Thomas Jane, who was the Punisher in the two thousand and four movie. After that movie was produced, they tried to make a Seat equal with Thomas Jane as the character. It never got off the ground, but he did manage to make a short film with Ron Perlman actually called Punisher Dirty Laundry, And if you haven't seen that, it's on YouTube, I highly recommend it. It's only like ten minutes long, I think, but it is super brutal. Not quite as brutal as this special presentation, though Punisher one Last Kill has some of the craziest pulse pounding action I've ever seen out of not just any Marvel project, but out of any project ever. Like this is like on the level of the Raid Redemption. It was reminiscent of movies like Dread.

11:33 It was exactly fucking insane, Like it was so herowink when I was watching it though, just the way that it was shot, the kinetic style of the camera and the very grounded cinematography and the choreography of the fights themselves just had me on the edge of my seat for the back half of this special. And like the level of violence was insane. Like I find myself saying a lot that Marvel is producing a lot more mature fair with things like the Thunderbolts or even Dartable Born Against season two, But this is like hard our TVM content. Oh yeah, it's the artist of all R rated or mature content that MCU has produced, I'll say it's definitely not for this squeamish Like, if you can't stomach the sight of very brutal violence, I would not recommend this.

12:19 It's more violent than even something like Punish or war Zone, which I think was previously the most violent Marvel project to day. Maybe Blade Actually Blade is pretty violent, Yeah, but that's like vampire supernatural violence. This is like stabbing people in the face kind of violent. Right. Yeah, they definitely don't hold back. I'm glad they didn't. Though, I'm glad Marvel is taking these kind of risks. It does seem like they're addressing the desire to see things new and original within their umbrella, but more apparently true to the character in the comics. Yeah, for sure. One thing I especially loved about this special was the music. They went all over the board in terms of the song choices and like sometimes you have like Italian opera playing over some of the action, making it feel very artistic, and then sometimes you'll get full on death metal, which really gets you going in terms of the adrenaline of what you're seeing. My daughters basically saw me do a one man moshpit. When that scene came out, they didn't watch the movie. They just saw me from the other side of the house. How does one do a one man moshpit? Are you like pushing yourself? Just swinging my arms?

13:19 Anyone who gets in the way their problem. I think the special presentation pushes the envelope in a way that needs to be done right now. It might go too far for some people who aren't into this kind of stuff and are more into the colorful superhero fare, But I think for fans of The Punisher, they're gonna be entirely satisfied by the level of viscera and just the gunplay. Yeah. I mean, not only was the action fantastic, but just like the tone of it reminded me a lot of, I guess, a horror film, but like one of those really good horror films that you get nowadays, like an a twenty four produced horror film or something exactly where it's uncomfortable to watch, but it's also kind of just ban ass in a way. Well that may have less to do with the action and more to do with the mental health depiction of Frank Castle. As I mentioned earlier, he's dealing with coping over the end of his mission essentially of avenging his family, and he's wondering where to go, and the way he kind of goes through all of that, dealing with what seems like a complete breakdown, with hearing voices and seeing ghosts and things like that really put you into his head in a way that is unlike anything even like when you look at The Thunderbolts and you see how that film addressed mental health. It did a great job in terms of this century and it got dark even but it didn't quite have the editing prowess nor the haunting, scary vibe that this special has. Yeah, I didn't really love that aspect going into it until I kind of realized that all this mental health stuff was setting up his arc. He'd completed his mission, he

14:51 had gone vengeance, and then what And that's never really a question I found myself asking about the Punisher. Like in the comics, I didn't need to know why he did what he did. He just felt justified in punishing criminals and that was enough for me. But this film answers the question as to why he continues to punish after he gets his revenge, and it does it really well. Yeah, The best thing I think that this special does is it answers whether the Punisher kills bad guys because he hates them or because he wants to make the world a safer place for good people. Like I've always suspected that Frank Castle himself doesn't really fully know the answer, but at least here in this special, it seems like his actions were very telling, and I just thought that was brilliant. It meant so much to me as a Punisher fan, and like how I like to think of the character because the Punisher can be adapted so many different ways, like I think I mentioned in our dual episode where we pit the Punisher against the Red Hood, like some people may see the Punisher as on a suicide mission, trying to take out as many criminals as he can on his way to meet with his dead family. Again.

15:52 Some people will see it as him being just a mass murderer who finally found the catalyst to enact his killing spree based on the of his family, and some people seem as a little bit more of a heroic figure and that he is trying to make the world a better place by doing this killing. He's a complex figure in the comic books, and no less so with John Bernhal's adaptation. Yeah, I saw that he wrote this movie and was one of the producers on it. That's awesome, Yeah for sure. Yeah. One thing I like that Bernenthal does is that he really leans into the militaristic aspect of the punisher. He does a great job of tying that all in. There's some really nice nods to the Marine Corps within this film, and like you even see the guilt of how the end of his mission, how he even felt like he was betraying the Marine Corps and everything like that as a former reconnaissance marine. Yeah, I never believed that any of the actors who portrayed Frank Castle in the past were in the military until John Berenthal. I don't know. I think Thomas Jane now looked the part, and now Ray Stevenson I know, Okay, now not so much as John Berenthal. Okay, he does seem very jar heady, but even beyond the military stuff, Like John Berthall does a great job of portraying that caring father vibe, like he's truly broken up by what happened to his family, and like in those scenes when he like, ever since I became a father to a little girl, anytime scenes like that happen, I cannot help it my tears, Like, well, up, I cried, I cried, did you?

17:16 Yeah? Yes, it was hard not to like I can't handle that stuff. But going back to the harrowing moments, there were times where I almost felt like I was going to start shaking. And that may make me sound like a pussy, yes it does, but I think if you are a father, you'll probably understand where I'm coming from now regarding that, in a way, I don't want to go into spoiler territory, but can you help explain to me the one last kill subtitle for this that would be spoiler territory? Okay, never mind playing one last kill. If you watch the show, you'll understand what that one last kill is or is supposed to be. So okay, well you just confirmed that. Okay. Bernenthal's acting was so raw and emotional, really seemed unstable here and really portrayed the deep hurt and the inner turmoil and the dark mental state that Frank Castle's in. And the plot really plays with the audience too, and how it kind of like tugs at you where the first scene where you see Manucci. I'm not going to get into spoilers here, but there are some really good turns plot wise, even for a forty five minute special, Like I'm thinking back to like the end scene too, it's so great. And I have to compliment the Punisher outfit for this special as well, like I can't remember if this is exactly what he's wearing in the upcoming Spider Man movie, but this is the best Punisher outfit that we've gone, even from like his own Netflix series, which kind of obscured the skull motif a little bit, Like it seems like all of the Punisher on screen appearances have obscured the skull motif. But at the end here we get it in its full glory and it's an awesome sight to behold.

18:41 Oh yeah, it was totally awesome. I was worried for a second that he wasn't going to wear the costume at all during the special, but when he put it on, it was something to behold for sure. Just to touch on Mannucci real quick, Yeah, when I saw her on screen, I was like, is that motherfucking Mannucci? Bro? Yeah? I love Welcome Back Frank By garth Ennis. It's my favorite punisher comic arc I read a few of them. I was not expecting her. I did not know she was going to be the villain of this short, and she was perfectly cast by Angela Light. Judith Light, you're thinking her name was Angela and who's the boss? Judith? You know what I mean? That's nuts. I never expected Judith Light to be in a superhero project, much less playing such a sadistic, ruthless character like man Nucci. But I thought she fucking nailed it. She aced it like she chewed on that scenery exactly how I thought Manucci as a character should. It was fantastic. We did not get enough Manucci. This whole thing should have been longer. It needed to be a movie. That makes me angry that this wasn't longer. Although on the other hand, you know, maybe if it was longer, maybe they would have lost what they had that was special here. Na, Nah, it would have been fine, because they can't just leave us hanging with just this. That's why I was saying, they need to do at least one of these, like every year, Although I don't know what you would call a sequel.

20:01 One last kill for reels this time. Well, I think he's passed that one last kill and he's ready to you know, continue his new mission now, and we'll see him do that in the upcoming Spider Man movie, So you know, it's not like we're not gonna see him again anytime soon. Hopefully, you know, his appearance in the Spider Man movie is enough to maybe parlay into his own full length feature film again, or maybe even his own full season on Disney. Plus, it's still kind of a mystery who the villain of the new Spider Man movie is going to be. Like what if it's like Kingpin and man Nucci and like Electro with the Hand and Mister Negative, they're just teaming up to take on all of New York's criminal underworld. Could be good. I'm sold. Sold.

20:42 It's not gonna happen, but that would be cool in all. Really, the Punisher One Last Kill Special presentation delivered everything that I was looking for in a Punisher special presentation, especially when it comes to the action, because I feel like a lot of the other on screen Punisher appearances have been sorely lacking in act from the two thousand and four Thomas Jane movie where he spent most of the time lugging around a fire hydrant instead of shooting people in the face. Punisher Warzone had a lot of action, but it was a little bit cartoony in its depiction. The Punisher seasons on Netflix, I think lacked the amount of action that they should have. Even though we did get some phenomenal action scenes, none of them were on the level of this special presentation. I think his appearances in the Daredevil show were actually the best of John Berenthalp's action scenes, but even those didn't have the choreography of this short right exactly. So the action was there, the character exploration was there, the raw emotion was there.

21:39 Everything was there for this short. You know. It was violent, pulse pounding, it was often harrowing. I think the special transcends standard comic fare in its ability to dive deep into the Punisher's dark and troubled psychosis. I'm actually going to award this TV special five stars out of five. A frustrating on Rotten Tomatoes. I understand where you're coming from, but if I were giving my own rating, I would give it four and a half stars because it was too short. No like I could see doing that if it was a full length feature movie that ended at like eighty nine minutes, like you wanted to be something that it probably should have strived to be. Like the special presentations aren't supposed to be anything more than forty five minutes. So if fulfilled its obligation of being a standard special presentation runtime, yes I would have liked more.

22:26 But I think the Special accomplished everything is set out to do. Okay, well, we no longer go into spoilers in our reviews as our listeners know. But Joseph, are there any spoilers that you can give us, even out of context ones? Yes, oh yeah, for sure. Okay, So in Punisher one Last Kill, Frank Castle borrows a pen and does he In the Punisher one Last Kill, you see a guy holding a dog put it down, and yes, that is a pun that is too soon. In Punisher one Last Kill, Frank crosses his heart and hopes to die. That was rough. That was rough. There's a lot of rough scenes in this movie. That was maybe one of the roughest. But that does it for this review. Ag nine K helped close us out.

23:11 Thanks for listening to Dynamic Duel. Visit the show's website at Dynamic Duel dot com and follow us on Instagram at Dynamic Duel Podcast. Don't forget to listen to the other shows in the Dynamic Podcast network, including Max Destruction, Sendjo World, and Console Combat. All right, so we have more to review later this month. It's going to be the Supergirl review, Jonathan, Are you looking forward to that? I am. I am worried about it though, Like I'm worried, not enough people are going to go see it, and that would just not be good for James guns DCU. For sure, Supergirl is gonna bomb hard. I can tell you that right off the bat there's not nearly enough excitement for it. But DC does have a winner on his hands, I think with Clayface, because horror films are having a moment right now, and it was made for pretty cheap, so it's definitely gonna make a huge return. And like the stuff that they're revealing for the Superman film coming out next year looks pretty exciting. Oh yeah, like Lex Luthor's battlesuit. Hell yeah, can't wait. Yeah, the Batman too sounds like it's going to be pretty good too, I mean, just because it's The Batman too. Though, we don't really know anything about it yet. We do know a lot about Spider Noir because that's already streaming. Yeah, that's completely out, although we are going to punt the review for Spider Nor season one until after we get to Supergirl and after we get to Spider Man Brand New Day, so the Spider Nor review is probably going to come out in August.

24:29 I think we will be skipping the X Men ninety seven season two review because we're not really going to be reviewing the animated stuff anymore. But I'm really looking forward to seeing that because X Men ninety seven was also five stars. It was an incredible show, and it's coming out right before Batman Caped Crusader season two, which we also rated pretty high. I think we rated that four stars. I want to say, yeah, both of those animated series were really good. I'm thrilled that the season two's are coming out this year. That X Men trailer in particular, just went way harder than it needed. It's gonna be so good. I can't wait but look forward to all that stuff coming out in the next month and later this year. Thank you guys so much for sticking with the show and listening to our thoughts on these Marvel and DC projects and we will talk to you in just a few weeks. Until then, I'll pop it away, true believers.

25:16 One Batch, two Batch, Penny and Dime, Papa Bears a Baker and so am I. One Batch, two Batch, Penny and Dime. I love you, baby girl, till the end of time.