by Sun Meilan

Created on: June 02, 2008

Frank Castle has just retired from the FBI after an illustrious career and is looking forward to spending some quality time with his family. Unfortunately, in his last case, he was responsible for killing the son of a corrupt businessman called Howard Saint, who then seeks revenge on Castle and his family by killing every single last one of them. Frank somehow manages to survive and, once recovered, decides to exact his own revenge on Saint and his family. Will he be successful? Or will he realise in time that revenge will not bring his family back?

Thomas Jane, an actor I have barely heard of before, plays Frank Castle. I thought he did a reasonable job in the role. Based on a Marvel comic character, Castle is not really terribly believable - although he isn't imbued with super-hero characteristics, he does manage to live through violence that would have finished most people off, then get up, dust himself off, and start again. However, bearing that in mind, I thought Jane worked well within the confines of the role. He certainly looked the part - all rippling muscle and brooding good looks.

John Travolta isn't exactly pushed in his role as Howard Saint. I've seen him play similar roles before - Face/Off immediately springs to mind. Nevertheless, he did give a good performance. I particularly liked his relationship with his wife - his jealousy of her really gave his character some depth and made him seem a bit more human. His violence and aggression was perfectly off-set by his best friend, Quentin Glass, played by Will Patton. Glass' existence as Saint's 'yes' man again adds a touch of realism to the story.

There are a bunch of rather odd characters who live next door to Castle when he is trying to exact his revenge on Saint. They are Joan (Rebecca Romjin), Dave (Ben Foster) and Bumbo (John Pinette). All are social misfits, just trying to do what they can to get by, but that is not why I thought they were odd. Although they add a touch of humour to the proceedings, there wasn't a huge amount of point to their existence. I thought a love affair may develop between Joan and Frank, but that didn't really take off. They did make me smile though and that can't be a bad thing.

I didn't realise when I first started watching it that it was based on a Marvel comic character and I initially found it all a bit strange and not very credible - I found myself questioning things all the time, which was a little off-putting. Once I realised the background though, it did all begin

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