Punisher One Last Kill review (2026)
Punisher One Last Kill might struggle through a rough first half — not ideal for a 48-minute special presentation — but Jon Bernthal’s charismatic performance as The Punisher ultimately shines through for a decent if not spectacular spotlight of one of the Marvel Netflix era’s breakout characters.
At its best, One Last Kill is an unapologetically classically Punisher outing with Bernthal bringing a Hulk-like rage to the former soldier turned vigilante who doesn’t believe in soft slaps on the wrists for violent criminals.
Director/co-writer Reinaldo Marcus Green understands the action requirements of a worthwhile Punisher spotlight. Viewers anticipating One Last Kill to deliver an almost gory level of punishment eventually won’t be disappointed even if it takes a while to get to the copious amounts of bloodshed. Green co-wrote the special with Bernthal, who has a solid grasp of what makes Frank Castle tick.
Some of the issues with the opening act of One Last Kill is it feels like it’s retreading old material.
The first season of The Punisher pretty firmly established that Frank Castle was dealing with a devastating emotional cocktail of PTSD, guilt and grief over losing his family in a gangland shootout. His coping method? Ensuring no one else suffered the same kind of tragedy by killing the mob families involved in his family’s deaths.
Now, Frank is emotionally cut off from the world and wondering if his mission is complete. He’s having visions of his family and some of his Marine Corps pals, including Curtis Hoyle. Curtis survived both seasons of The Punisher, but he’s not the only survivor Frank is seeing in his hallucinations.
The main problem with this approach is it doesn’t line up with the last time Punisher appeared in the first season of Daredevil: Born Again. Frank wasn’t facing any existential questions or debating his role in eradicating New York’s criminal population.
In the Born Again season 1 finale, Punisher broke out of Mayor Wilson Fisk’s secluded vigilante prison. Assuming One Last Kill occurs the full six months from the end of Born Again seasons, just a line mentioning those events and what he did in the interim would have sufficed.
With an enlarged disconnect between his visions and the real world, Frank is missing the powder keg about to ignite in the city after the assassinations of the Gnucci family. The level of craziness Frank walks by is almost cartoonish specifically cops getting assaulted and their cars being engulfed in flames.
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Frank gets shaken out of his malaise when Ma Gnucci (Judith Light) confronts him over killing her family. Light makes such a strong impression in her showcase scene that it feels should have arrived earlier as she comes off like a credible archrival for The Punisher.
To get revenge, she’s placed a bounty on his head that will be collected at the time her life effectively ended. This cues up Green transforming One Last Kill to The Raid: The MCU Edition. For all of the previous missteps, One Last Kill delivers when the action gets underway.
Green stages some intense, brutal battles. To stack the odds against The Punisher somewhat, he doesn’t have the key to the safe containing his ready for warfare arsenal. This means Punisher has to act like a video game character grabbing guns, bats and axes to fight through the endless stream of goons.
These sequences are well-staged with Punisher showing his tactical acumen in staving off overwhelming odds with the occasional guttural yell because it’s Bernthal’s Punisher.
One Last Kill wraps in a satisfying manner closing the loop on the opening act while getting Punisher set for his MCU movie debut with Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Off the heels of Daredevil: Born Again’s incredibly layered second season, One More Kill is less nuanced. Sometimes you’re not in the mood for a tense legal and back and forth battle of wits. If you’re looking for a short chaotic blood fest, One More Kill delivers in the end.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10
Photo Credit: Disney
The Marvel Legends Punisher One Last Kill figure are up for pre-order tomorrow at numerous online retailers like Amazon and Entertainment Earth.
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