9. Howard Saint Murders The Wrong Mans Entire Family The Punisher (2004)
This ones pretty much the exact definition of dont shoot the messenger. John Travoltas Howard Saint is a ruthless crime boss whose son is hilled in a shootout with the FBI meeting up with the undercover Frank Castle. Its important to note that Frank doesnt shoot Bobby Saint that honour falls to a gun-toting footsoldier, after the idiot raised his gun despite being surrounded. However, Howard doesnt care hes a man possessed, looking to dole out some sort of vengeance on whoever was responsible. Again, I have to state that Frank didnt kill Bobby Saint sure, he was in on the sting, but the objective was to take the younger Saint alive. The guy who screwed it up wasnt Castle, it was the man who actually shot the young criminal. Yet Travolta doesnt come down like a ton of bricks on the triggerman for some reason, hes fixated on Frank, and so is his nutball wife, who insists that her husband murder the entire Castle clan in return. This isnt score-settling not so much a tooth for a tooth, more a tooth for the whole damn mouth. Even if though the Saints came to the wrong conclusion, surely the best solution wouldve been to whack Frank, or hell, just his wife and son. Instead, they steam up to the Castle family barbecue, lose a bunch of good men apparently a good chunk of Franks family know how to handle weaponry then fail to kill the man they were supposed to be focused on. Its a stupid, over-the-top reaction that does more harm than good youve got an already capable FBI Agent who youve traumatised into ass-kicking mode, all hell of a lot of explaining to do to the Puerto Rico Police and youve lost some heavies into the bargain. If hed have just insisted on doing the score-settling evenly, quietly and taking out the right person, he couldve nipped the whole films plot in the bud and not suffered the ignominy of killing his wife before being dragged over fire and bombs.