Our protagonist’s foes are generally made despicable, so we can celebrate when he savagely dispatches them. It’s a rhetorically effective strategy, but pretty immoral! The boldness of that dispatching elicits some admiration.
The punishment actually goes both ways, such that a cliché comes to mind. Gibson takes screen punishment as well as Brando—from the very beginning, and certainly in this film, he’s a tremendous physical presence.