The name Uwe Boll has been a name on the high end of controversy over the last 12 months, recently engaged in a war of words with several big Hollywood legends, arguably Boll has been given the title of "Worst movie maker of all time" and after one such spat, Boll found himself the subject of a petition, if the petition got X amount of signatures Boll would agree never to make a movie again. While he is a little on the controversial side, his movies do make money House Of The Dead, Alone In The Dark, and In The Name Of The King have all cashed in well; and are all based on popular selling videogames. But it is with his latest released movie Postal, again based on a popular videogame Boll has outdone himself in enduring he gets some attention.
Very seldom am I greeted with an opening scene so shocking that I look on open jawed at the vision I am seeing. To Arabic pilots are flying a plane whilst having a debate about how upon completing their mission they will receive a certain amount of virgins, while one claims to have been offered a thousand, the other was just offered a hundred. How would they get to the bottom of this? By a phone call of course, then it's straight on the phone to Osama , "How many virgins will we get for completing this mission?" No more than 20 between you comes the reply. Debating the reality of what they have just been told, the pilots announce over the intercom that there has been a change of plans and that they are now heading for the Bahamas. Sadly this falls on deaf ears and a mob of angry passenger break through the door, and you realise (after some pretty strong hints) that this is supposed to be the first plane to hit the World Trade Centre. If you want to cause controversy, why not make fun of one of the most known disasters of recent years?
Uwe Boll a German film-maker makes no apologies with his opening and moves on to cause further offence, this controversial character jests with disasters and later in the same movie makes a strong statement to two other American disasters, Waco and Columbine; cult followers are massacred, as are children. Of course he changes the scenes slightly delivering the child massacre into a Nazi World theme park in which he is one of the central characters. Not only does the director cause general offence, he goes on to imply that he gets aroused by reporters and children, does this man have no shame?
I'm sorry to confess I actually rather liked this atrocity of a movie, I'm not advocating any aspect of the film, but in a case of being so bad it's good you kind of have to make some allowances. Every fifteen minutes I was pretty much given reason to smile and look away from the screen trying to tell myself I really do not like this movie.
The movie follows several strands that all connect together as the movie progresses, chiefly following Postal Dude (Zack Ward) who discovers his incredibly overweight wife is having sex with pretty much anyone who just so happens to walk past their trailer. At the same time we see the rise in power of a terrorist cluster, and the finally a cult that is in trouble for tax evasion. All of who descend upon the Nazi Theme Park to celebrate the launch in the US of Krotchy dolls. Involved in the celebration is celebrity midget Verne Troyer.
If you are the sort of person that has stern views of American politics, then no doubt something about Postal might appeal to you. But it's pretty far off the genre of conventional humour, and as many people that will enjoy the movie, twice as many will hate it.
Postal is an incredibly sick and adult movie, with scenes of gross out sex, unusual sexual relations, slandering of religion, and odd pairings of key real life characters. Combine with this the fact that the movie is clearly very low budget. Then try to understand the casting, Zack Ward has been in a string of popular movies for over 20 years beginning with A Christmas Story and more recently Transformers. Then you have one time A-Lister Michael Pare, Austin Powers Verne Troyer, Seymour Cassel an actor who's movies include Indecent Proposal and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou; when you have dealt with the familiar sounding names then there are the oh so familiar faces, nearly every scene has someone you recognise from another movie or popular TV show, there are no unknowns here, none at all. How does Boll manage to garner reasonable cast to appear in bad movies?
Despite the fact that I laughed on several occasions, I admit I'm a bit sick; and for the normal everyday movie viewer this far too far off whack to make enjoyable viewing for most; and rather like most other Uwe Boll movies this one is probably best avoided.
