Offensive, immoral, disgusting and just plan out of control are some of the words that describe this movie from controversial German director Uwe Boll. POSTAL is a film that is very much like a live action episode of South Park as it’s quoted on the back cover from our friends at Iconsoffright.com, I couldn’t of said it better myself. The thing is that the film goes to such heights to shock and disgust the viewer you can’t help but laugh and be offended at the same time.
Trying to explain the plot of this film is like trying to get that itch on the part of your back that you just can’t seem to reach. In a nutshell POSTEL is about a guy (Zack Ward) who’s life sucks. He has no job, he lives in a trailer with his disgusting fat pig of a wife and is clueless as to what his purpose in life is. He goes out one day and gets a job, but loses it very quickly. He’s soon approached by his uncle Dave (Dave Foley) who is part of a cult that includes hot women and a little person. There mission is to steal a shipment of rare toys that they heard are selling for four grand a pop on E-bay and at auctions. Little do they know that Osama Bin Laden has put vials of the bird flu in the dolls to be shipped throughout the U.S. in a chemical warfare attack. Now they must go postal and kill everyone that’s against them and the terrorist in order to save the world from the mayhem that is about to take place.
There is a common balance of purpose with a script that is so laugh out loud funny but yet very offensive. There are a lot of things in this film from scenes involving the 9/11 disaster to World War II Hitler references and Arab’s saying they hate Jews. So yes although their done with a comedic shock value in place, I know for a fact that many people will be very offended by this movie. But in the same light the script points out that people have really taken all of the worlds disasters and made them out to be something where money can be made off of them, and how the human race thrives on bad events and never on the good. While this film is downright disrespectful to the many of people who have lost their lives in war like disasters, there is this hidden message that says we live off our fears and are always keeping the bad memories alive by feeding into them. I’m not sure if this is the message the writers of the script were trying to tell within the context of the film, but I did catch little glimpses of it in some of the dialogue and the scenes. Speaking of dialogue, this movie is full of so much bad language and really screwed up dialogue it’s at times very funny, but also a bit to much. Yes, I know the film is supposed to be a no hold barred comedy, but I prefer the story to move on, rather than hearing someone say F*&k and shit a million times over.
The movies overall production value reminded me very much of a B-movie film with a big budget for effects and explosions. Think of POSTAL as a big budget Troma movie. It has a lot of blood, guts and extreme gun fire and explosion. While the effects at times look very fake and the sets aren’t the most realistic looking, they work, mainly because the overall production value is just as crazy as the movie itself. As far as the acting, I have to say when your an actor working with a script that is so far out there, you really can’t expect to pull off a great performance. While I praise the actors for taking on such controversial roles, the characters in the script provided to them where the not the best developed character. Therefore I felt that the performances took on to much of a comedic role for the actors than one that would be considered a serious role. In a way it’s like being cast in the SCARY MOVIE, or EPIC MOVIE types films. You really can’t take the performances seriously or praise the actors for their work, because their performances are only going to be as good as the script lets them be.
Overall, POSTAL is a movie that has me mixed. While I found many scenes to be laugh out loud funny, I also felt that they were very offensive as well. Now, I didn’t feel uncomfortable about some of the tasteless jokes used in the movie, but I did feel uncomfortable for laughing at scenes that portrayed certain historic disasters where many people lost their lives. I feel uncomfortable for anyone who lost a family member during WWII or 9/11 that might stumble upon this film in a hope for a good laugh only to see that the way in which their loved one has died is being poked at with a stick for the sake of tasteless comedy. Still, on the other hand I understand that little message that movies like this are trying to say, and I saw it in POSTAL no matter how tasteless and offensive this film might be.
The DVD comes with two discs. One with the unrated version of POSTAL, with a few extras such as ‘Raging Boll” where Uwe Boll fights some of the critics in a boxing match that have panned his films. Commentary by Director Uwe Boll. Verne Troyer as Indiana Jones and much more… The Second Disc is the PC video game of Postal 2 for you to play on your PC and have fun with.
– Horror Bob
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
