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The Punisher: No Mercy (2013, Jason Ambrus)

About half of The Punisher: No Mercy is effective. From the credits, it appears the fan short is a labor of love for star Shawn Baichoo–who apes Karl Urban’s voice from Dredd, which doesn’t work here. Baichoo cowrote the script and choreographed the fight scene between himself and Amber Goldfarb.

The fight scene isn’t very good. It’s hard to tell if it’s the choreography, Jason Ambrus’s lackluster action direction or James Malloch’s decidedly limp editing. Mercy, throughout, has terrible sound effects. They should have splurged for a better sound effects CD.

The script’s multi-layered, which is almost neat. The problem is that fight scene. It takes up most of the second half and between the boring fight and Goldfarb’s terrible performance (not to mention it’s all on a confined set)… the short loses all momentum.

Mercy shows talented amateur filmmaking; it’s too bad it’s a waste of time.

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4 responses to “The Punisher: No Mercy (2013, Jason Ambrus)”

  1. Dorian Gray Avatar
    Dorian Gray

    Man, talk about shitty acting, cheap looking costumes and sets, fake looking weapons, bad lighting and editing where at times we only see half of the characters on screen where they get cutoff and the camera shakes. This took itself way too seriously. I don’t remember the Punisher ever being a skinny bald Vin Diesel lookalike (the fact that cosplay fans go too far more lengths to look like the characters they’ve dressed up as is pretty sad when it comes to this guy), or being enemies with Elektra (why is she even there in the first place?), and throwing lame predictable high school death threats at each other.

    Comic book writer Garth Ennis never resorted to this type level of writing when he wrote them in 2003. He didn’t resort to them trying to out tough each other. Hell, the fake looking Punisher was getting his ass handed to him by a dumbass punk for a second there. The cheap looking fight between the Punisher and Elektra seems to only be there just for the sake of it. Because we can’t have two known comic book characters on screen together without a meaningless fight scene…

    If this is the Punisher, then where’s his black slicked back hair? Where are his muscles? Where’s his body armor? Where’s all his weapons and combat gear? Where’s his military style training when it comes to moving around and firing a gun because this is just a half ass attempt at that. Pretty unprofessional from someone who’s suppose to be a military veteran. Ambrus was not a very convincing Punisher here in the slightest.

    The main problem with this is from most of the people who worked on it. Looking at Behind the Scenes on Youtube, you can clearly see there just a bunch of fanboys who think too much of themselves and they can’t get past all there idiotic teenage like nostalgia. This was clearly made for mindless teens and 20 year olds.

    What this guys has done in the past doesn’t impress me at all. He and the rest clearly needs a lot more practice in filming, editing, writing, and acting. He needs to know when to be in front of the camera and when to take himself off. He should have done the smart thing and hired a writer or writers who have more experience at this type of storytelling and someone who looked more like the character. Instead he just thinks he can do it all himself… he can’t.

    Reply
    1. wolfsenior Avatar
      wolfsenior

      We’d love to see you take a crack at it, “Dorian”. You sound like a pro. Thanks for watching!

      Reply
  2. wolfsenior Avatar
    wolfsenior

    Well we certainly appreciate you wasting some of your valuable time to watch it and to write about it.

    Best,
    J.A.

    Reply
  3. Francois Jordan Avatar
    Francois Jordan

    Now here’s someone who looks like the Punisher
    http://blog.mysanantonio.com/geekspeak/files/legacy/archives/PunisherF.jpg

    He actually has hair, a physique, body armor, he has more than just a handgun and he looks more like a badass. Baichoo looks like someone who’s late for a small town comic book convention.

    Reply

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