Postal (film)
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Postal is a German-American satirical action comedy film directed by German filmmaker, restauranteur, and YouTuber Uwe Boll, produced by Uwe Boll, Shawn Williamson, and Daniel Clarke, and written by Uwe Boll and Bryan C. Knight. The film stars Zach Ward, Dave Foley, Chris Coppola, Jackie Tohn, J.K. Simmons, Ralf Moeller, the late Verne Troyer, Chris Spencer, Larry Thomas, Michael Paré, Erick Avari, Lindsay Hollister, Brent Mendenhall, Rick Hoffman, Michael Benyaer, the late David Huddleston, the late Seymour Cassel, Uwe Boll, and Vince Desi.
It was released on October 18, 2007, in Germany before being released in the USA 7 months later and serves as a film adaptation of Postal. Although, it draws heavily from its sequel Postal 2 instead.
During the development of the film, Vince Desi and Steve Wik pitched a dark and gritty version of the movie, but Boll rejected it and turned it into a comedy. This scrapped version probably was based on the first Postal video game, while the current version seems loosely based on the second game.
Plot
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.
Why It (Intentionally?) Regerts Everything
- Just like Uwe Boll's many video game adaptations, the movie is (mostly) unfaithful to its source material, removing and modifying multiple elements from the game it is based on. For starters, Paradise looks nothing like its game counterpart.
- In the original game, the "trailer park" where the Postal Dude's mobile home is located is a large backyard owned by a young African-American couple and their Hispanic housemate. In the movie, it's an actual fully-populated trailer park.
- The pistol can be silenced with a cat but not the shotgun or machine gun like in the game (although that'd later be implemented in POSTAL 2 20th Anniversary Update and Postal 4: No Regerts).
- Uncle Dave's cultists consist of nothing but scantily-clad trigger-happy girls, unlike the equally-gendered cultists in the game.
- The Postal Babes are all members of Uncle Dave's cult when they're adult models affiliated with the in-game Running With Scissors.
- Instead of working for Running With Scissors under Vince Desi (who happens to be the real-life founder and CEO of Running With Scissors), the Postal Dude signs up to work for an office building instead.
- The Lucky Ganesh All-American Minimart is a small shophouse instead of its large building like in the game.
- The movie has lots of disgusting, offensive, and tasteless jokes shoved into it in an attempt to match or even surpass the game's then-notorious shock value that has since become outdated nowadays. These include giving the Taliban way more screen time than their in-game counterparts and parodying 9/11.
- There are loads of plot holes scattered around the movie. What happened to the late Verne Troyer after he was thrown into a pit of chimpanzees? The film seems to forget him for the rest of the movie. (It is plausible that he got raped to death, hence his absence from the rest of the movie.)
- The story is a huge mess and is full of side stories that are very loosely connected, possibly to match the game's near-disjointed story too.
- Multiple terrible and unlikeable characters are either very annoying, disgusting, lewd, or offensive or have very little to no personalities and serve no purpose other than to act as fillers or replace some characters from the game.
- Several characters from the game have been flanderized to the point where they physically don't look like their in-game counterparts anymore.
- The Postal Dude, the main character, is now a clean-shaven ginger loser instead of the red-haired, goatee-sporting, trenchcoat-wearing everyday man in between jobs who got caught up in multiple bizarre adventures.
- The Bitch is portrayed as a morbidly obese woman who does nothing but sit on her bed and eat chips all day.
- Uncle Dave is now a womanizer who uses the cult as an excuse to get laid instead of the brave equal-opportunity cult leader who isn't afraid to go against the ATF in a last stand against them (and won if his appearance in POSTAL 2: Paradise Lost is anything to go by).
- Habib Ali Ishmael, the owner of the Lucky Ganesh minimart, goes from a trigger-happy young man who'd not hesitate to shoot down shoplifting "infidels" like the Dude to an old balding man who gets nervous and hesitant around the terrorists and is not afraid to assist the Dude in going against the same terrorists alongside his daughter.
- The ending is very dumb and offensive. Somehow, Osama bin Laden is friends with George W. Bush throughout the movie and they happily skip along a field like children together as the world gets destroyed in a nuclear apocalypse.
- The film's poster is badly photoshopped and therefore looks very tacky.
Redeeming Qualities
- The movie's home media comes bundled with a free copy of Postal 2.
- Numerous elements in the film would later be implemented in later entries in the franchise, mainly The Bitch being canonically fat and therefore being unable to leave the mobile home (implemented in Paradise Lost), the ability to silence any gun, and having an amusement park themed around offensive themes (both implemented, as for the amusement park as the female reproductive system-themed Kunny Island Amusement Park in Postal 4: No Regerts).
- Some actors did decent jobs portraying the game's characters to the point where two became canon in later entries in the Postal franchise.
- Zack Ward (who also portrayed Scut Farkus in A Christmas Story and its 2022 sequel, Alex in Don't Blink, Nicholai Ginovaef in Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Desmond Packard in Beyond The Law (2019), and Mickey in Survive The Game) did a decent job replicating the Postal Dude's mannerisms and even reprised his role during his (optional) second boss fight in his Winter Wonderland compound in POSTAL 2: Paradise Lost. Additionally, in the "Ever had one of those days?" update of Postal 4: No Regerts, he is available as a voice option for the Dude.
- Vince Desi did a decent job portraying Krotchy and the late Verne Troyer performed his cameo as himself.
- Jodie Stewart did a good job replicating The Bitch's mannerisms and voice to the point where her movie look and behavior were made canon in POSTAL 2: Paradise Lost.
- There are some funny moments scattered around the movie, mostly The Bitch being blown up by the Dude's remote-controlled IED alongside Officers John & Greg after she got stuck at the mobile home's entrance and Candidate Welle's shit-eating grin after being blown up by a Taliban suicide bomber and splattering against the Lucky Ganesh's floor-to-ceiling windows.
- The soundtrack is decent and tolerable to listen to.
- Knowing the nature of the game, and depending on who you ask, this may be the most tolerable video game movie in Uwe Boll's filmography and the most faithful one.
Reception
As with Boll's predecessors, Postal received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics and audiences alike, though a bit more favorable comparisons to his other films.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a critic rating of 9% ("certified rotten"). The site's critical consensus reads "An attempt at political satire that lacks any wit or relevance, Postal is nonetheless one of Uwe Boll's more successful films -- for what it's worth."
On Metacritic, the movie has a critic rating of 22/100 ("generally unfavorable reviews") and a user score of 6.5/10 ("generally favorable reviews").
The film was also (unsurprisingly for Uwe Boll standards) a box office bomb, gaining less than 1% of its budget back (essentially $146,741 on a $15 million budget).
The NY Daily News gave the movie a 0/5, criticizing its tasteless humor, plot, and unfaithfulness to the game.
The film was nominated for three Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Supporting Actor (Boll as himself), Worst Supporting Actor (Troyer as himself), and Worst Director (Boll), winning the latter.
Despite this, it has somewhat of a cult following from fans of the series due to this film’s nature, which might be why it has a 9/10 on Steam, and it shows.
Videos
Official trailer
Full movie
Reviews and other videos
External Links
Postal at the Internet Movie Database
Postal on Rotten Tomatoes
Comments
- Mature
- Bad media
- Bad films
- 2000s films
- Based on video games
- Action films
- Comedy films
- Black comedy films
- German films
- Films for free on YouTube
- Box office bombs
- Films with cancelled/scrapped sequels
- Films aware of how bad they are
- Adult films
- American films
- Bad movies from good franchises
- Banned films
- Controversial films
- Live-action films
- Spin-offs
- Unfunny films
- Edgy films
- Edgy media
- Terrible grasp on the source material
- Gross-out films
- Offensive films