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Postal (2007)

DVD Cover (Vivendi Visual Entertainment)
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Overall Rating 48%
Overall Rating
Ranked #3,348
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In the ironically named city of Paradise, a loser teams up with his cult-leading uncle to steal a peculiar bounty of riches from their local amusement park. The recently arrived Taliban have a similar focus, but a far more sinister intent. --IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: October 1, 2008
In the opening scene of the film, we find ourselves in the cockpit of an airplane where two fellows of Islamic descent are discussing how many virgins they'll receive after completing their mission. "I've got a hundred of them lined up for me" exclaims one, to which the other replies "But I was only promised ninety-nine!" Thinking that perhaps they've been duped with this whole religion thing since they've apparently been told different things, they decide to call up Osama bin Laden himself and find out exactly how many virgins they will be receiving in the afterlife. Osama explains that martyrdom is on the rise recently, and as such, he can't promise them any more than twenty apiece. Realizing that blowing themselves up isn't really worth it now that their compromised reward slightly resembles the US stock market, they decide to turn the plane around and head for the Bahamas... when a bunch of overzealous Americans break through the cockpit door and cause the plane to crash directly into the World Trade Center. What, you thought they meant to do that?

Folks, this film gives the word "tasteless" new meaning. If the opening scene horrified you, then you probably won't find the humor in Nazi atrocities, children being murdered, little old ladies being shot in the face, the handicapped being exploited, animals being used as weapon silencers, terrorists lashing out at Americans, religious zealots (both Americans and Islams) attempting to kill everyone on the planet to please their God of choice, gay jokes, full male frontal nudity courtesy of Dave Foley, and little dolls that are shaped like male anatomy. You probably won't like the material that comes after the first twenty minutes, either. Yes, this is a film that pushes the envelope further than perhaps it has ever been pushed before in the world of film, and although it's not for everyone, I personally thought that Uwe Boll - the peddler of Nazi gold himself - has created a hilarious film and at the same time has finally made a movie that is faithful to the game upon which it is based.

Speaking of that game, let's just be kind and say that it did not have a strong storyline as its selling point. Likewise, the film adaptation has enough of a storyline to get us from the opening scene until the closing credits, but to say that this is Shakespearean in nature would be stretching it. It centers around "Postal Dude" (Zack Ward), a down-on-his-luck twenty-something living in the little town of Paradise who just can't catch a break. He lives in a dump of a trailer park, his morbidly obese wife is screwing anyone who will lay down the flour and search for the wet spot, he's just been laid off from his job, and now, he can't even get a lowly office job at the local Gluttco.

Thankfully, Dude's cult leader uncle Dave (Dave Foley) may be able to help, but it'll be risky. You see, there's this new toy that all of the kids in America want, a wholesome little doll named - you guessed it - Krotchy. The problem is that the Chinese freighter that was bringing America's shipment over sank, and even though all of the Chinese men and women aboard the ship died, some of the toys made it over in one piece. Thank goodness for small miracles. Now, there's only about two-thousand of these toys to be divided up amongst the American citizens, so needless to say, the prices on the various online auction sites are through the roof. Dave's plan is to head over to the friendly German amusement park where the shipment will be sent to, steal each and every last one of them, and make a killing selling them. What could go wrong?

Oh, wait... Osama bin Laden (Larry Thomas) and his Taliban friends also have plans to steal these dolls, with the intent of injecting them with the Avian Bird Flu before releasing them to the public with the idea being that they'll spread the disease all over America and wipe us infidels out. Postal Dude quickly finds himself in over his head, and it's only a matter of time before he's forced to break out the big guns and, well, go postal on those Taliban assholes. J.K. Simmons and Verne Troyer make cameo appearances, and yes, even Dubya (Brent Mendenhall) himself shows up to aid Osama in his hunt for the elusive Krotchy dolls.

It seemed as though Boll's intent with this one was to offend as many people as possible and have fun doing it. As such, and this bears repeating, this film is certainly not for everyone. If you think that it's "too soon" or if you believe that certain things shouldn't be made light of, then this is not the film for you. If, however, the thought of seeing Uwe Boll admit to financing his films with Nazi gold and attempting to pay his workers with gold teeth taken from Holocaust victims sounds amusing or if you've ever giggled at a 9/11 joke, then Postal will be right up your alley.

Indeed, this is a film that features material that - on paper - would probably offend a large portion of its viewers, but the said material is handled with tongue firmly in cheek and it's hard to take any of it too seriously. For example, the whole Nazi gold thing: this sounds pretty damned rude in writing, but once you see Uwe Boll decked out in lederhosen while surrounded by German bar wenches, it's sort of hard to get offended by it. Poking fun at Jews both here and later on in the film? Yeah, it pushes the envelope a little bit, but it's done in such a lighthearted way that it's impossible to truly get upset. Thin-skinned viewers may disagree with me on this outlook, but if you can take material like this for what it is, you'll probably laugh as much as I did.

If you enjoyed the type of humor found in Postal 2 (the game that this film was based on), you'll love what Boll did with the material. For once, the man has created a game-to-film adaptation that won't piss off fans of the source material, and in fact, I'd be willing to wager that most of said fans will think that Boll knocked it out of the park with this release. You're going to miss out on a few jokes if you've never played the game, but this isn't a huge issue; after all, you might not catch the reference, but will that truly hurt when you see a man jamming his gun up a cat's ass and using the feline as a silencer while he picks off Taliban members?

I enjoyed Postal - there, I said it. It was wrong on so many levels and I couldn't believe how far he went with certain topics, but I just couldn't stop laughing. I thought that it did tend to drag in certain spots as it seemed as though Boll was attempting to be offensive just for the sake of being offensive without any solid material to back up the subject that he was trying to parody, but this fault is sporadic at best. The rest of the film is hilarious, and if this and Seed are any indication of the direction that Boll's career is taking, I'm all for him selling off some more of that Nazi gold to make more movies. 8/10.
bluemeanie #1: bluemeanie - added October 1, 2008 at 5:38pm
Watched this today at work for two reasons: (01) I had nothing better to do and (02) I actually wanted to see if I could be proven wrong about Uwe Boll. This review made me think it was possible.

But then I came to a conclusion -- Shit Is Shit. Doesn't matter how many sprinkles or how much glitter you add to it -- shit is shit, and it's always going to be shit. Uwe Boll is shit. Every film he has made has been shit. From "Alone in the Dark" to "BloodRayne", from "In the Name of the King" to "Seed". And, yes, "Postal" is a piece of shit too.

Why? It tries waaaaaaay to hard to be clever and hip and everything that Uwe Boll isn't. The idea that Uwe Boll could even halfway succeed at political satire is beyond me, and he just proves all of his critics right on every occasion possible. What is there to like about this film? Honestly? My fellow reviewer said that Boll's intent with this film was to offend as many people as possible and to have fun doing it. Well, I was not offended by any of the content in the film. What I was offended by was wasting two hours of my time to have another ridiculous piece of Uwe Boll garbage shoved down my throat.

Yes, this is probably the best Uwe Boll film to date. Just because you take home first place in the Special Olympics, doesn't mean you're not still retarded. "Postal" is bad, bad, bad. Dave Foley is bad, and I am huge fan of his. Seriously -- give me a break? This man is the AntiChrist of American cinema and "Postal" is evidently his punishment for all mankind. 0/10.
Tristan #2: Tristan - added October 1, 2008 at 5:53pm
This movie could have given Boll a good name if he'd pulled it off. I actually had high hopes for this one, as I'm a fan of the game, and it looked as though it could be funny. I couldn't have been more wrong. I laughed once, and the scene could have been in any movie and I still would have laughed.

1/10

Crispy #3: Crispy - added January 27, 2011 at 3:02am
Meh, I had high hopes when it started, loved the conversation over the exact amount of virgins the martyrs would earn. After that though there was only a chuckle here and there.
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