The Punisher: Purgatory
Genre: Action/Superhero/Crime
Director: S. Craig Zahler
Writer: Dwight Gallo
Based on Marvel Comics characters
Cast: Mel Gibson, Jonathan Tucker, Carla Gugino, Shea Whigham, Jennifer Carpenter, Dwight Yoakam, Tory Kittles, James Urbaniak, Slaine, Fred Melamed, Mira Sorvino, Francois Chau, Jake Busey
Plot: A parked NYPD cruiser idles outside the 12th Precinct in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Two uniforms inside chew through their sandwiches. Across the street, Finn Cooley (Jonathan Tucker) and St. George (Slaine) drift with the pedestrian flow. Cooley palms a taped pipe with a faintly ticking timer. At the curb, he crouches like he's tying a shoe and slides it under the cruiser. They keep walking as the police car explodes.
In his workshop, Linus (Dwight Yoakam) hunches over a workbench, chewing a toothpick and soldering wires into the guts of a rifle. Police scanners crackle on a shelf above. Frank Castle (Mel Gibson) steps inside without knocking. Linus groans that his worst customer just walked in. Frank lays cash on the table and says he’s got work to do. Linus tosses him a suppressed shotgun with a custom grip, explaining it’s quiet enough to take a man’s head off without waking the neighbors.
In the backroom of an old-school Irish pub, Cooley sits at the head of the table with a pint. St. George drops a brick of drug cash onto the table, stacking it in neat rows. They talk about the bombing like street theater - a warning to the NYPD and every rival crew in the city. Cooley wants each hit bigger than the last until his name’s feared throughout the five boroughs.
Joan (Carla Gugino) works the bar in a low-rent strip club. She moves between pouring drinks and chatting with regulars who remember when she was on stage. At the far end, her boyfriend Dave (Jake Busey) sits a bottle deep, watching her like she’s property. Every time she smiles at a customer, his jaw tightens.
In the cramped captain’s office of the 122nd Precinct, Detective Martin Soap (Shea Whigham) sits across from Captain Ennis (Fred Melamed). The smirk on Ennis’s face dies when Soap slides a folder across the desk containing evidence of Ennis' corruption. Soap lays out the terms: Ennis resigns, Soap takes the chair, and the file disappears. Ennis mutters curses but agrees. Soap pulls the Castle file from a drawer, lights it with Ennis’s desk lighter, and drops it into the trash can. Molly von Richthofen (Jennifer Carpenter) sarcastically congratulates Soap on the promotion.
Frank Castle pushes through the club's front door and heads straight for the counter. He orders a whiskey from Joan, pays cash, downs it without a word. From the corner, Dave’s drunken voice cuts through the low jukebox hum, turning mean until Joan moves to quiet him. His hand clamps on her arm. Frank’s stare goes cold. He crosses the room, twisting Dave's hand until bone pops. Dave staggers, clutching his wrist, as Frank shoves him toward the door with enough force to rattle the frame. One of the dancers mouths “thank you” as he leaves. Joan gives Frank a brief, almost reluctant nod.
A sedan idles outside a corner store run by a rival crew. Cooley and St. George crouch beside it, hands moving fast over wires in the open trunk. Across the street, Frank steps from an alley, shotgun up. St. George dives behind the sedan, shouting. Cooley lunges for the driver’s seat, but Frank’s buckshot tears into the trunk, sparking the charge. The blast rips the car apart, hurling Cooley into a brick wall. He comes to on the pavement, his face shredded, one eye gone. Frank advances, but sirens cut through the ringing in Cooley’s ears. EMTs drag him onto a gurney before Frank can finish it.
Cooley lies on an operating table in the seedy basement clinic of Dr. Vok (Francois Chau), half his face swaddled in bloody gauze. Metal plates and jagged stitches make him almost unrecognizable already. Hours later, Vok peels away the gauze and nervously hands over a mirror. Cooley studies the wreckage - mismatched skin grafts, a crooked jaw, the roadmap of scars - without blinking. He begins humming an old Irish lullaby off-key. Then the mirror shatters in his hand, cutting into his palm. Vok tries to calm him, but Cooley jams a scalpel into his throat. He steps out into the night. With a new face comes with a new name: Jigsaw.
In a dim newsroom, Ben Urich (James Urbaniak) scrubs through grainy footage of the corner store bombing. A figure with a shotgun moves through the smoke - obviously Frank Castle aka The Punisher. He jots the name in his notebook, tries an NYPD contact, gets dead air. He flips through articles on the Gnucci family, the Bulats, and now Cooley, murmuring that the through-line is always the same name and the cops keep looking the other way.
The club's nearly empty. Joan sits alone at the far end. Frank walks in, asks if Dave’s been around. She shakes her head no. They trade small talk - bad music, cheap whiskey, weather. When she asks if he ever gets lonely, Frank glances at her like he’s weighing the answer. Later that night, alone in his hideout, he sees a brief vision of Maria (Mira Sorvino) sitting beside him, telling him it’s okay to care about someone else. He mutters that Joan isn’t her. Maria only smiles before fading.
NYPD lights flash as Finn Cooley - his face stitched together like a jigsaw puzzle - steps into the open. Squad cars close in. He lets the gun fall, raising his hands with a grin. As the cuffs go on, he tells them it’s safer in a cell than on the street with The Punisher hunting. Walking past the holding cells at the station, Cooley trades looks with the other inmates.
Soap sits in his car, sipping away at coffee. Castle enters from the passenger side without notice. He tells Soap that he wants inside Rikers with Cooley. Soap grumbles. They settle on a quiet setup: an easy bust for illegal weapons, clean paperwork, no noise. By nightfall, Castle will be in a holding cell. Castle doesn’t fight the takedown. NYPD hauls him out of the staged raid. Booking is fast - ink on his fingers, belt and coat taken, boots dropped in a plastic bin. By nightfall, he’s walking through Rikers’ gates.
In the Rikers mess hall, Cooley stands on a bench, his voice cutting through the din. He names names - gang leaders, enforcers, brothers in blood - men The Punisher has put in the ground. The room shifts toward Frank, but he doesn’t look up from his tray. Guards finally haul Cooley down, but the spark’s been lit - the word spreads fast through Rikers that The Punisher is in there with them.
A foggy dockyard at midnight. St. George waits as a line of trucks idles, diesel fumes rolling into the mist. Barracuda (Tory Kittles) steps from the shadows - bigger than before, his right arm a bolted-on hybrid of steel and gun, the weld scars running to his shoulder. St. George lays out the job: get Cooley out when the signal comes. Barracuda nods.
The mess hall roars until Castle stands, tray in hand, and smashes it into the first man who rushes him. A second comes with a shiv. Castle turns his wrist, drives it into the man’s gut. Cooley climbs a bench, shouting for the block to earn their bones. Inmates surge. Castle backs toward the serving line, cracks jaws with a ladle, drops another with a knee. Alarms blare. Castle bursts into the kitchen, ducks a carving knife, snaps an elbow, slams another headfirst into a prep table. Fire extinguisher spray blinds a pack before he clubs them down with it. Castle moves like a battering ram - skull to railing, chain around a man’s throat before flinging him over the rail. Tear gas blooms. Cooley waits behind Aryans and Bratva with sharpened toothbrushes and taped armor. Castle plows in, drops three fast, drives another down the stairs. A beanbag shot staggers him. He claws forward until more gas chokes the air. When the air clears, guards overwhelm the area. Castle is cracked in the back of his skull with a baton. Guards swarm and zip-tie him. Cooley laughs from the rail, blowing him a kiss as they drag him to solitary.
In solitary afterward, Frank sits bruised and bloodied. In the flickering red light, Maria appears in the corner of his cell, telling him she doesn’t recognize the man he’s become. He’s shaken. He mutters that he doesn’t know how to be anything else. Maria’s expression softens; she says he was more than the war once.
Two DOC vans lead a convoy across the Queensboro Bridge, flanked by NYPD cruisers, in midday traffic. In the first van, Cooley sits cuffed and chained, hood low, bound for the courthouse to stand trial for a long list of violent crimes. Suddenly a garbage truck crashes through traffic, swerving, and blocking the lanes. Traffic locks. A black SUV slams the trailing cruiser. The truck’s hatch drops. St. George steps out, pump shotgun booming. Barracuda emerges from the SUV, prosthetic arm-gun roaring, ripping through the lead van’s side. Cooley lifts his head, grinning through the scars as he crawls out of the van. A final shotgun blast ignites a cruiser’s tank, fire leaping skyward. Cooley stares into a bent side mirror, laughs at the broken reflection, and drags a fingertip across his scars.
Sitting in his solitary confinement cell, Frank's knuckles are still swollen from the riot. His prison jumpsuit is caked in the dried blood of other inmates. Soap appears at the door, flanked by a bribed guard. He steps in with a file under his arm. He tells Castle that Cooley is on the loose after bridge ambush. He offers to help Frank break out of Rikers, but there’s a catch: he takes out Cooley and his accomplices. Frank agrees. Soap slides him a folded sheet of paper with a keycard hidden inside. Before he leaves, Soap adds that Molly is the one who found the guard and wired the access - if anything goes wrong, it’s on both of them. Frank gives a curt nod that reads like a vow.
The next night, Frank waits in his cell for the signal. A muffled clang echoes down the block - two guards faking an argument. His door buzzes open an inch. He slips out, silent, the keycard from Soap unlocking a maintenance stairwell. On the service floor, a lone guard stands by the loading dock, eyes down. He gestures to a laundry cart. Frank climbs in without a word. The guard wheels him past chain-link and razor wire into the back of an unmarked van. The door slams. The engine roars. Frank rolls from the cart, spotting the driver - Linus, chewing gum, eyes on the road. Linus motions to a rifle in the back. Castle inspects the weapon and starts loading it.
In the dim corner of an abandoned Queens body shop, Jigsaw leans against a stripped car. Barracuda looms nearby, his prosthetic weapon-arm resting at his side. St. George paces, rattling off crews that owe them favors. Jigsaw listens, then slams a wrench onto the hood. His plan is simple - every gang in the borough answers their call. Some for cash, some for chaos, most to watch the Punisher bleed. Barracuda laughs, calling first shot if Frank shows. Two lookouts slip in from the street with word already spreading - Castle’s out. Jigsaw’s grin widens. He orders the first wave: bomb scares, ambushes, noise to draw him out. Barracuda spins the drum on his weapon-arm.
Frank shows up at Joan’s apartment unannounced, stepping inside before she can react. Fresh bruises mark her arm and collarbone. She brushes it off, but he shuts her down with a flat promise - he’ll be back. She warns him not to do anything stupid. He leaves without another word.
Frank finds Dave in the back of a grimy bar, a pitcher in front of him, running his mouth. Frank takes a pool cue from the rack and a glass ashtray from a table. Dave notices too late - the cue cracks into his ribs, then the ashtray shatters across his jaw. He drops, and Frank follows, smashing his head into the sticky floor before hauling him up by the collar. Pinned against the bar, Dave gets a handful of peanut shells ground into an open cut, his howl echoing under the low ceiling. Frank leans in, and warns Dave that if he ever even looks at Joan again, Frank will make sure no one will be able to recognize what’s left of his body. He lets him fall, bleeding and gasping.
Ben Urich strides into the 122nd, flashing an old press badge like it still opens doors. He corners Soap outside the captain’s office and asks plain if Castle’s inside Rikers was a setup. Soap feigns ignorance a beat too long, then fumbles a line about process and procedure. Urich studies his sweat-soaked collar and says the city’s used to bad cops, but it’s not used to captains this out of their depth. Soap tries to end the conversation. Urich thanks him for confirming more than he thinks.
The sidewalks outside a busy Fordham shopping strip are jammed - families with strollers, kids spilling from a pizza joint, workers heading home. A battered city bus rattles past, its windshield spiderwebbed. St. George is at the wheel. Jigsaw hurls pipe bombs through shop windows. He fires bursts into the air, then at passing cars, shouting that Castle has one day to face him or the city keeps burning. By the time they ditch the bus under the Cross Bronx Expressway, three blocks are in flames and news choppers circle overhead. The message will be replayed on every TV in New York.
In the back room of a laundromat, Frank meets with Soap and Molly. Soap tosses a manila envelope on the table - scraps pulled from the precinct without raising flags. Inside: informant whispers, partial plates, shaky witness IDs. Frank stops on an address that keeps surfacing in Cooley’s operation - a warehouse in Long Island City. Molly suggests hitting them both the same night. Frank nods: fast and quiet before Jigsaw scatters. Soap mutters he’s risking his badge just bringing this. Frank, loading a fresh magazine, says after what’s coming, a badge won’t protect anyone. Soap swallows hard.
At the Long Island City warehouse, Frank kicks a padlock clean off the door. Inside, six men work rifles, tape mags, check detonators. Frank moves first - short bursts from the AR drop two before they touch their weapons. Molly takes the catwalk, firing down. Linus hangs near the entrance. A man lunges from behind a stripped SUV - Frank slams him onto the hood and buries a knife in his throat. Against the far wall: blueprints of Bronx subway stations beside a duffel of explosives and timers. Above them, nailed with a combat knife, a crude sign reads: "COME FIND ME, CASTLE" - its red streaks too dark to be paint. Frank yanks the knife free - just as a low beep echoes from the duffel. His eyes cut to the timers: under thirty seconds. Jigsaw’s voice crackles from a small speaker hidden under the table, laughing, taunting him for being too slow. Frank grabs the map, slings the duffel, and shouts for Molly and Linus. They sprint through the door, hitting the pavement as the warehouse erupts behind them, the blast shredding the windows and sending a wall of heat into the street. As they collect themselves outside, in front of the now smoldering warehouse, Castle tells Linus and Molly that he's going to go solo for now - he doesn't want their blood on his hands.
Frank moves alone through the Bronx Subway Yards. By the control shed, transit workers kneel zip-tied, faces to the wall. One glances up - Barracuda boots him square in the chest. Frank steadies his rifle, dropping the first guard before he can shout, the second choking on his own blood. Jigsaw spots Frank in the chaos, shoves a detonator into St. George’s hand, and vanishes into the shed. Barracuda stays, grinning under the rain, his cannon arm glinting. Barracuda fires. Frank dives behind a track switch, moving low between parked subway cars. Barracuda stomps after him, firing again and again until Frank bursts from cover, slamming him into a steel beam. Barracuda swings his real arm - Frank catches it, pins his shoulder with a boot, and wrenches until bone pops and tendons shred. The cannon arm spasms, but Barracuda’s body buckles under the pain. Frank yanks him upright and smashes his face into the sharp corner of a subway car repeatedly until pieces of brain and skull fragments hit the ground.
Castle moves deeper between derelict subway cars, shotgun ready. Jigsaw steps out from behind a maintenance truck, St. George at his side with a sawed-off. The gunfire starts instantly. St. George blasts, Frank ducks, then fires back. One slug caves St. George’s chest, dropping him in a spray of blood. Jigsaw stares at his dead lieutenant for half a beat before flicking a switch. Frank dives as the cars around them erupt, fire and shrapnel tearing through the yard. Jigsaw bolts for a service tunnel. Frank gives chase, eventually tackling him to the ground. Frank plants a boot on Jigsaw's shoulder, pinning him. Jigsaw claws for a detonator. Frank stomps his wrist until bone snaps. Frank growls that this is for every innocent burned, blown apart, and buried. Jigsaw tries to laugh, but it’s a wet gargle of blood. Frank jams the sawed-off under his jaw. One blast takes off the top of his head, painting the tunnel in blood. Frank stares at the remains for a moment.
Soap leans back in his chair, thumbing through a file thick with reports on bombings, mob wars, and the bridge escape. Molly stands against the wall, arms crossed. From the shadows, Frank’s voice says it’s done. Soap smirks, says the city owes him, and asks if he’s sticking around. Frank doesn’t answer - just tells him to remember this favor when the precinct needs a miracle no badge can deliver.
Ben Urich finishes a draft: a meticulous timeline connecting Castle, the Gnuccis, the Bulats, and Cooley - plus a captain who plays both sides. He hovers over “Publish,” but doesn't click it. Urich sighs, then closes the file. He drags it into a password-locked folder already holding half a dozen other investigations that never saw daylight - a missing city councilman with mob ties, a dead whistleblower pulled from the East River, a shipping manifest that vanished the week before 9/11.
Frank stands outside Joan’s door. She opens it. He asks if she’s okay. She nods, then suddenly kisses him. He doesn’t flinch - just leans in, his hand brushing the small of her back for a heartbeat. Then he pulls away and walks off without a word. Joan watches him go.
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