Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/911593
maltatoday SUNDAY 3 DECEMBER 2017 This Week 45 – his wife, Sarah (Jaime Ray Newman) and their two kids believe him to be dead – the unlikely duo now come face-to- face with a wide array of dan- gerous obstacles and dangerous people... from the top brass of the topmost corrupt branch of the CIA in 'Agent Orange' (Paul Schulze) to the deter- mined Homeland agent Dinah Madani (Amber Rose Revah)... who appears to be after the same targets as Frank, though their methods differ wildly. And how will Frank's fellow military survivors Curtis (Jason R. Moore; now running a veter- an rehab centre) and Billy (Ben Barnes; now running a success- ful private military operation), fit into the picture? The biggest win for this lat- est iteration of The Punisher is showrunner Steve Lightfoot's desire to run with a re-jig of the protagonist's origin story, in a way that lends topical currency to what would otherwise have been generic vigilante fare. By injecting an element of critique for the American mil- itary-industrial complex, the show circumvents the prob- lems of melodrama and re- dundancy that have plagued previous Punisher adaptations and, arguably, neutralised them into utter irrelevance. This is because both the well-meaning 2004 Thomas Jane adaptation as well as the more recent, Ray Stevenson-starring Punisher: War Zone were franchise non- starters (though we'll concede that the very, very first one of the lot, starring Dolph Lund- gren and released in 1989, re- mains a slice of B-movie joy). Viewers who got a chance to meet Bernthal's Punisher in the Daredevil series will be familiar with the actor's on-point blend of the savage – his wounded howl is one for the ages – and the vulnerable – his pursed lips and half-wink in moments that call for either sarcasm or sheep- ishness is a winner – and it's a joy to see him unspool these talents even further in this stand-alone series. Ironically enough, the actor gets more berth to showcase these fea- tures in a show about a mass- murdering vigilante than he did in the likes of The Wolf of Wall Street, Fury and Baby Driver – where he performed adequately but was given somewhat one- note roles to start with. It's a good thing, too, because Frank is something of a tough cookie to be strung along by; his morally-questionable meth- ods are baked into the very concept of what the character is about, and Berthnal's com- plex portrayal goes a long way to salve that. But the jittery "pain in the ass" that is Micro also does his bit to tip the bal- ance – a former NSA analyst trained to fight with keyboards and not guns, some comedy does emerge from him being way over his head but – even more crucially – he's an excel- lent foil to Frank, and a voice of reason too (though as the situa- tion escalates, the opposite also becomes true). As both the good and the bad elements within the legal and enforcement establishment close in on their respective tar- gets along with Frank and Mi- cro, the show succeeds in cali- brating our interest to a fever pitch; blending in the personal and the political and lending a complex shade to Frank's tra- ditionally uni-directional quest for revenge. For this reason above all, a second season will be a chal- lenge to pull off. But if Mar- vel's commitment to keeping things fresh doesn't waver – aided along by the little uni- verse of 'urban heroes' they've already established, and which reached its first peak with this year's The Defenders – viewers should have very little to worry about. Marvel's The Punisher series is a tightly-woven and bloodily told little saga that can stand proudly among the best of what the entertainment monolith has helped produce so far – on both the big and small screen. Aided by a great writers' room endowed with a keen sense of what makes viewers tick, along with sensitive and on-point performances from its actors all-round, this show is one binge-watching experience whose 13-odd hours you won't regret losing to the streaming service. Marvel's The Punisher is cur- rently streaming on Netflix Soldier boys: Jason R. Moore and Ben Barnes Single(?) White Female: Jamie Ray Newman is Sarah Lieberman