War Zone Didn’t Sugarcoat The Cost Of Violence

Stevenson was in the position of having to do some “Punisher” research before appearing on screen. He didn’t know much about the character prior to the movie, and was quite shocked to find out just how violent the premise was. For those not in the know, The Punisher saw his family murdered by gangsters and henceforth devoted his life to fighting crime. His tactics, however, are brutal; he usually dispatches criminals with guns and bullets. Stevenson was startled, saying:

“I wasn’t aware of it to be real honest with you. I came to it when it was first broached to me. In all fairness, when I first read it, I thought, ‘This is just extremely violent. What the hell is this?’ But very quickly Garth Ennis’ writing sucked me right in. I thought, ‘My god, he doesn’t shy away!’ It does raise moral issues and psychological issues and he doesn’t pull away from it. He will throw it in there and commit to it. It was his writing that then brought me in.”

It was important to Stevenson that the Punisher not emerge from the film as heroic or aspirational. Stevenson was attracted to the script’s handling of the character as a wounded, damaged human being. In fact, Stevenson felt that the more extreme the violence became, the stronger the anti-violence message would be. If the Punisher, for instance, only beat people up like Batman, he might emerge as heroic, even noble. If he punches people all the way through their heads, however, one can see that he’s somewhat psychotic.