Punisher: War Zone (2008) Now Punisher: War Journal

A friend of mine is a big Punisher fan, and said that this was the movie out of the 2 he wanted to see “fixed”. I haven’t watched it in a while and when I went back to it to see what I wanted to do, I was like “oh boy, what did I get myself into”…

But I had a moment of inspiration. Pretty much every October, I watch the original classic, The Crow. Back when that movie was still very new but out on home video, I remember my friends mom asking if the movie was in black and white… We all know it wasn’t, but it’s just the color was muted for large parts of the movie. Color is a big part visually of what I see being wrong with this movie. Punisher should feel gritty, not saturated.

So I’m going to use 50% Grayscale on the movie as a whole and may do some additional color corrections where needed for specific scenes. But one other thing about me watching The Crow that I think will fit well here. I only have that movie on DVD and SD digital. I have only every watched it that way and in my mind, the little extra grit you get from the movie not being so clean in HD has become part of the movie watching experience. I don’t plan to ever watch The Crow any other way. So I am going to add a little bit of noise to the movie for some grain or grit if you will.

Oh… and no more Batman 89 Joker ripoff scene.

I have compiled my cut list. Total cut is about 11 minutes

• Trimmed the amount of time Punisher(Frank) stands on the mobs dinner table

• Cut some of the mob people at the tables deaths. He’s sitting in one spot too long and needs to be moving faster or there is just no way he is surviving this scene.

• Speed up the kicking the soup into the guys face by 50%. Again, it just moves too slow.

• Trimmed some of the time spent hanging from the chandelier. Same reasoning as the rest of this scene.

• Cut the Jumpy Flippy Guys at the docs minus the one scene where they pick up the cash. Now when Billy say to “do your monkey thing” it now has different context, but we are not supposed to like this guy.

• Moved the scene when Billy (not jigsaw yet) finds out Nicky was a rat to after the Basement scene with Budiansky (who I will now just call Booty) and Soap meet. This way I can cut the whole plastic surgeon part that directly rips off Batman 89.

• Cut the shot of the plastic surgeon with the scissors in his head. He doesn’t exist in this cut of the movie. Now when Pittsy is looking away it’s because it’s the first time seeing Jigsaw.

• After Jigsaw breaks in to get Loony Bin Jim (LBJ) I cut the scene after LBJ says “no brother, fatso’s mine”. He get’s to become too much right away and this character needs to be dialed back. Sometimes it’s just better to hint. More creepy that way.

• Cut LBJ breaking all the mirrors. We only see him breaking one. The scene as a whole feels too silly otherwise.

• At Micros house when Frank says that he’s done Micro talks him back by reminding him that Jigsaw will be going after Mrs Donatelli and her daughter. So I cut away after Frank says Jigsaw is the last one and he’s done. Again I am cutting the jumpy flippy guys. There is no need for this subplot. Frank knows where the Donatelli’s live. He was just at their home trying to drop off cash. So him showing up to rescue them later still works because he is only staying around to stop them from getting killed anyway.

• Cut Frank and Booty fighting and Frank getting arrested. That also means he doesn’t sit in the back of the police car. Soap and Booty said earlier that they were going to be listening to the police band and listen for what crimes are happening, so if Booty hears there is a call at his friends widow’s home, it’s not odd they would also show up to check it out. We don’t need Frank to tell them to go there.

• Slight rearrangement of scenes at the Donatelli home.

• Cut Booty asking Soap how Frank escaped from the car.

• Cut LBJ making a cat sound in the interrogation room at the station.

• During the Jigsaw recruitment speech I never cut back to Jig and LBJ because I don’t like the flag floating behind them. Again the movie just goes too far. So I am using scenes from the special features and some fan films off YouTube as cutaways to represent what Jig is talking about in those moments.

• Cut scene at police station when Booty tells Soap that he is helping Soaps Partner (meaning Frank). Booty has no reason to suspect this now.

• Cut shots of LBJ walking around.

• At the raid in the Hotel, cut shot of guy smoking in the elevators head exploding.

• Trimmed fight between LBJ and Frank to remove LBJ dialog. He comes across a bit more menacing fighting silent.

• Cut Franks line at the end of the hotel scene “This is just the beginning”, It doesn’t fit.

• Cut LBJ random laughing through out the movie where I could.

To give you an idea of what I’m going for:
https://vimeo.com/655879193?embedded=true&source=video_title&owner=102400559

Ready for release!

Reviews are coming in-
https://ifdb.fanedit.org/punisher-war-journal/

Voting on fanedit.org is up and running. This edit is on the list, so if you would like to check out the edit, let me know and if you feel it deserves your vote, feel free to express that over on the other sight.

I saw so much potential in War Zone and was largely disappointed. This feels like it might redeem this movie for me! Would love a link if possible!

jhed13 said:

I saw so much potential in War Zone and was largely disappointed. This feels like it might redeem this movie for me! Would love a link if possible!

Link sent