2. Punisher: War Zone
Now this film is just an out-and-out guilty pleasure. Forget The Expendables, forget Rambo IV, forget The A-Team, Punisher: War Zone is all the uber-violent, fascist wish-fulfilment 80s throwback you could ever need. Coming from Lexi Alexander, director of Green Street (one of the worst films I've had the displeasure of seeing), you'd be forgiven for expecting little from the third cinematic incarnation of Marvel's angel of death. Being a big fan of The Punisher, the Garth Ennis run in particular, I was always going to watch a new Punisher film and with the casting of Ray Stevenson and The Wire's very own McNulty, Dominic West, I was cautiously optimistic. It's an easy film to criticise but, assuming you share the same sensibilities to 80s-style ultra-violence as I do, it's an even easier film to enjoy. Crucially, it gets so much right. Ray Stevenson is the first man to don the skull emblem and make it his own. You believe in this guy. You believe he could throw someone into a glass crusher. You believe he could punch through a man's face... yes, through a man's face. That's just what Punisher: War Zone delivers on; it's a ludicrous orgy of blood and depravity. It's all topped off with a gloriously camp performance from West as the most unnecessarily, hilariously evil Jigsaw.