Genre: Action/Superhero/Crime
Director: S. Craig Zahler
Writer: Dwight Gallo
Based on Marvel Comics characters
Cast: Mel Gibson, Raffey Cassidy, Shea Whigham, Jennifer Carpenter, Dwight Yoakam, Goran Visnjic, Rade Sebedzija, Isidora Goreshter, Freddie Prinze Jr., Fred Melamed, Zahari Baharov
Plot: Frank Castle (Mel Gibson) visits his armorer Linus (Dwight Yoakam), asking to stock up on ammunition. Linus says that he thought that Frank was going to call it quits after he took care of the Gnucci family. Frank coldly states that he doesn't know what else to do other than punish the wicked. Linus dutifully leads Frank to the backroom where he keeps his weaponry. Frank selects a few new guns and loads up on ammunition. He then gives Linus a stack of cash he stole from the Gnucci mansion.
Antony Pavla (Zahari Baharov) greets a group of high-paying customers at his nightclub in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood of Brooklyn. He guides them into a back area of the club where several Eastern European prostitutes are being kept strung out. They express disappointment as they've already had sex with all of the women there. Antony then excitedly tells the customers that he does have one new girl - fresh off the boat from Moldova. This piques their interest and they hand Antony a wad of cash. He then leads them to a small closet. As soon as he opens the door, Viorica (Raffey Cassidy) bursts out of the closet. While the men try to wrangle her, Antony jokes that she isn't housebroken yet. The men drag her outside into the alley and pin her up against a dumpster as Antony happily watches on. Frank watches from across the street through the scope of a rifle. He doesn't take a shot at the men though as he does not want the bullet to go through them and hit the girl. The customers are about to rape the unwilling Viorica when she manages to take a gun from one of them. She begins firing the gun wildly, luckily hitting Antony in the shoulder. The customers pin Viorica down, wrestle the gun away and begin beating her. They stop though when they hear another gunshot ring out. They look over Antony's dead body with a large bullet hole carving out the center of his face. Frank stands over Antony's body with a smoking gun. Frank quickly opens fire on the other men, killing them without much effort. Frank gets a closer look at the unconscious Viorica and is stunned by her uncanny resemblance to his late daughter Lisa.
At the NYPD 122nd Precinct, Det. Martin Soap (Shea Whigham) bursts into his Punisher Task Force office in the basement and excitedly tells his partner Det. Molly Von Richthofen (Jennifer Carpenter) that there is an active Punisher sighting in Sheepshead Bay. They rush out of the building to get to the scene before anyone else can. Soap puts on the siren, runs red lights and even drives on the sidewalk to get to the nightclub. In the alley, Frank hears the sirens coming closer, snapping him out of his daze. Soap and Molly make it to the alley as Frank is carrying Viorica away. They order him to freeze, confirming once and for all that Frank Castle really is The Punisher. Frank sets Viorica down. He then expertly disarms Soap and Molly without causing them any injury and handcuffs them together. Soap tries to ask Frank why he's still out patrolling the streets after dismantling the Gnucci organization. Frank looks Soap in the eyes and tells him that the streets still aren't clean. Frank then picks Viorica back up and leaves the area. Molly reminds Soap that she is the one who first suspected Frank Castle was the Punisher. Soap and Molly stand in the alley, still handcuffed together. Soap jokes to Molly that his dream of them and handcuffs went a bit differently.
Frank takes Viorica to his hideout in the underground sewer system, placing her down on his bedroll to rest. Frank pulls out his tattered family picture. He compares the picture of his deceased daughter to the young Moldovan woman asleep, confirming that Viorica has an uncanny resemblance to Lisa. He plays quietly plays some 1960's soul music on an old record player as he cleans as guns.
Detective Stu Westin (Freddie Prinze Jr.) arrives at the precinct and makes fun of Soap and Molly for their embarrassing encounter with the Punisher. Once all the other detectives are laughing at Soap and Molly’s expense, Westin excuses himself to make a phone call. He calls Cristu to inform him that the Punisher is responsible for the death of Antony at the club.
After hanging up the phone, Cristu Bulat and Vera Konstantin (Isidora Goreshter) are discussing Antony Pavla's death at the hands of The Punisher over shots of vodka. Cristu tells Vera that he doesn't want his father to know about the situation as he doesn't want the Sheepshead Bay to turn into a warzone like in the old country - he just wants to cover their tracks and make sure that their business keeps running, pointing out that war is not good for the economy.
Frank watches over Viorica as she is having a violent nightmare, mumbling in Romanian. He has flashes of comforting Lisa when she had nightmares as a child. He holds Viorica's hand. Her nails dig into his skin, breaking the skin and causing him to bleed.
Westin sits down with Captain Ennis (Fred Melamed) and suggests they actually make an effort to bring down the Punisher since he assaulted two of the precinct's officers. Ennis downplays the situation, insisting that Soap and Molly are fine and that the Punisher makes their job easier - if he's even real. Stu suggests that if they managed to catch the man, that Ennis could easily be the next police commissioner of NYC. Ennis asks what Stu is angling for. Stu says that he wouldn't mind taking over the precinct once Ennis is surely promoted.
Viorica wakes up and talks with Frank. He asks how she found herself at the club. She explains that she was seduced by a rich man back home in Moldova, only for him to sell her and have her sent to America in a container on a Ukrainian cargo ship. She had not been here long when she was taken to Antony's club where she was drugged and imprisoned. As Frank listens to her story, the anger within him grows. Frank asks for more information on her captors so that he can deal with them. She says that the operation is run out of a house somewhere near Antony's club. A woman named Vera was in charge of the girls, Cristu runs the business, while his father is a monster who abuses and rapes the girls. To change the subject to something not so painful, Viorica asks what music she heard in her dreams. Frank says he was just playing a record to pass the time while she slept. He then encourages her to go back to sleep as she's clearly been through a lot. Viorica closes her eyes and lays back down.
Tiberiu Bulat (Rade Serbedzija), Cristu's father, is torturing a crack dealer for dealing in Sheepshead Bay without permission. The dealer tries to claim he doesn't need permission. Cristu walks into the room just as Tiberiu jabs out the dealer's eyeballs with his thumbs. Tiberiu pushes deeper into the dealer's skull until he dies. Cristu tells his father that a gun would have been more efficient. Tiberiu scoffs, insisting he wasn't trying to kill the dealer - he was trying to teach him a lesson about war zones, with his death merely a happy accident. Tiberiu then exits the room, leaving Cristu to dispose of the dealer's body in an oil drum. Cristu and Vera dump the oil drum off a dock and into the nearby bay.
Captain Ennis holds a press conference to announce his precinct's mission to catch "The Punisher" after the vigilante attacked two of his officers - which he reads from a speech written by Westin. Soap and Molly stand next to Ennis, begrudgingly made up to look like they were injured by the Punisher.
Viorica wakes up to find Frank loading up some guns. She asks where he's going. He doesn't tell her, but advises her to stay in his hideout where it is safe while he goes to "work". Frank heads over to Pavla's club. The dance floor is empty, but Frank finds a group of thuggish figures in the back office. He kills all of them except for one. The man pleads for mercy. Frank shoots the man in each leg, demanding to know where the main house is. Screaming in agony, the man tells Frank where the house is. Frank turns toward the door to walk away. The man begins crawling away. Frank turns around and puts the thug out of his misery with a bullet to the head.
Viorica explores Frank's hideout. She takes a handgun for herself as she looks around. Viorica finds Frank's small collection of old soul albums. She picks one to play as she continues looking around. She stops in her tracks when she sees a picture of Frank, Maria and Lisa tacked to a wall. She takes the pictures and compares the image of Lisa to her own reflection in a mirror.
Frank drives a motorcycle to the front of a house near the water in Sheepshead Bay. He inspects the house, finding that all of the windows are barred and alarmed while the doors are triple-bolted. Frank realizes there's no covert method of entry. Frank puts tracking devices on all of the vehicles in front of the house before leaving.
Soap and Molly enter their dingy basement office to find Westin going through their files. He commends them for identifying The Punisher as Frank Castle, but wants to know why they didn't bring the information to Captain Ennis. Soap says they wanted to be 100% before taking it up the ladder. Molly then adds that Castle is officially dead, so it would be a bit of a tricky explanation. Westin informs them that the information will be made public soon so they might want to figure out an excuse for sitting on the information quickly.
Frank goes to a storage unit outside of the city where the belongings from his family's former home reside. He finds a box of his daughter Lisa's clothes and puts them in a bag. He returns to his hideout where he finds Viorica listening to his music. He gives her the bag of Lisa's clothes for her to wear. Viorica manages a slight smile and tells Frank that she thinks she looks a lot like Lisa as well.
Tiberiu is cleaning a gun while watching television when he sees a report identifying The Punisher as Frank Castle, a war hero that was believed to have been killed in the explosion that killed his wife and daughter. Cristu sits by, worried by the news. He says that he doesn't want their organization to go anywhere near the Punisher, they will simply relocate the house no matter how much money they lose in the short-term. Tiberiu comments that he doesn't care about business, but that the Punisher sounds like a worthy adversary should they go to war. Cristu pleads with his father to not go to war with a vigilante right now and to let his contact in the NYPD have a chance to take care of things for them.
Frank calls Linus from a payphone and asks if there is any movement on the tracking devices. Linus confirms that two of the vehicles Frank tagged are both heading North away from the city. Frank tells Linus that he'll be by later for some equipment and a final location on the vehicles.
Cristu and some of his men drive north in two vans loaded with drugged out European women. They eventually pull up to a large lakeside house. Cristu tells his men to take the women up to the second floor where they will be unable to escape. Cristu sits down on the porch of the house and looks out at the lake as he drinks vodka straight from the bottle.
Frank picks up more weapons and some knock-out gas from Linus, who also gives him the final location of the vehicles. Linus asks Frank how it feels to be going on a road trip. Frank says his last long trip was the one that brought him back to the city to continue his crusade against scum.
Frank goes to upstate New York. He uses the gas to knock out everyone in the house. He goes through and puts a bullet in the head of each of Cristu's men, but ties up Cristu instead of killing him. Frank then finds the room where all the girls are kept. He calls the Punisher Task Force and talks to Soap. He asks Soap to come up and help him get the girls out of there and to a safe place. Soap asks what's in it for him. Frank tells Soap that he has evidence that Captain Ennis is dirty and would be willing to trade Soap the information for his help with the girls. Soap agrees to help, seeing a chance to do good and further his career at the same time - a rare feat in the NYPD. As Soap grabs his jacket to leave the precinct, Molly stops him and asks where he's going. He quietly tells her that Frank Castle called him to ask for help. Molly tags along, not wanting to miss anything major.
When Soap and Molly arrive at the house upstate, Frank gives them an envelope. Molly asks what is inside. Frank tells him that it contains information on Ennis' dealings with the Gnucci crime family. Soap and Molly load the unconscious young women into a van. Soap mentions that they are going to all freak out if they wake up on the road. Frank assures him that they should be out cold for several more hours still. Molly asks Frank what he's going to do now. Frank says he's going to punish the slavers. After Soap and Molly drive off, Frank drags Cristu out to the nearby forest. He cuts open Cristu's belly and pulls out his intestines. Cristu wakes up screaming in pain. Frank tells Cristu that the wound is survivable, but only if Cristu tells him what he wants to know before he bleeds out. Cristu asks what he wants to know. Frank tells him that he wants the whole operation top to bottom; he wants Vera and Cristu's father. Cristu spits at Frank, who then twists a knife into Cristu's internal organs, killing him.
Frank stops by his hideout to bring Viorica some food. She asks him how much longer she needs to hide. Frank tells her that it will all be over that night. She asks him what will happen to her after that, will she just be thrown to the wolves? Frank tells her that the wolves will all be dead by tomorrow, so she has nothing to worry about.
Frank pays Linus another visit, this time asking for his help locating Vera as she has been staying away from the business. Linus sits down in front of his computer and does some digging on the deed to the lakeside house. He tracks it to a shell company with a business address listed in a Manhattan high rise office building.
Vera is in her office, talking on the phone with Westin. He insists that he has no clue what's going on, but that the detectives in charge of the Punisher Task Force have not been around the precinct that day. She begins crying, saying that she hasn't heard from Cristu all day. Westin assures her that he'll take a look around to see if he can find Cristu - maybe he's just holed up with some of the girls somewhere having a good time. Frank then bursts into Vera's office. She drops her phone in terror, ending her call with Westin. Frank angrily announces that he knows what kind of business she and Cristu have been running. Vera tries to go for a gun on her desk, but Frank throws her against the glass of the windows. Frank then comments on the glass being shatterproof. Frank looks on Vera's desk and finds a folder titled Westin. He pockets the folder. Frank picks up Vera and tells her that even though the glass is shatterproof, if it is hit hard and often enough, eventually the frame will bend and the glass will fall out. Frank begins slamming Vera into the glass repeatedly, until sure enough, the glass window panel falls out. Vera falls out along with the glass, her body splattering on the city streets below.
Tiberiu and his men are at Pavla's old club gearing up for war. One of Tiberiu’s soldiers is watching out a window when suddenly a grenade flies through the glass. The explosion kills all but one of Tiberiu's men inside. Frank bursts through the back door and opens fire. Tiberiu uses his one remaining soldier as a human shield and returns Frank's fire. The soldier is killed, but Tiberiu remains behind the lifeless body until he is out of ammunition. Frank calls Tiberiu a coward. Enraged, Tiberiu lunges at Frank with a knife. Frank easily blocks the old man's attack and begins beating the man to a pulp. Frank then sets fire to the club, to purge the city of its crimes.
When Soap returns to the Punisher Task Force office, he finds Vera's folder on Westin sitting on his desk. He calls Molly over and shows her all the evidence of him working with the sex trafficking operation. Soap suggests they bring their evidence on Westin and Ennis to city hall.
Frank returns to his hideout to tell Viorica that he shut down the operation. She gives him a hug to thank him. It’s clearly been many years since Frank was last hugged as he isn’t exactly comfortable with the human contact. Frank takes Viorica to a women’s shelter where they can help her get back on her feet.
Months later, Frank is seemingly on patrol in front of a diner, but in actuality he is watching Viorica, who is now a waitress there. Viorica thinks she sees Frank outside, but when she goes to the door, he is gone. When Frank returns to his hideout that night, he finds a bag of food that Viorica has left him from the diner. Frank puts on a record and sits down to eat.
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