by MasterWhedon on Fri May 09, 2008 4:25 pm
I attended Creative Screenwriting Magazine's screening of Postal last night and the Q&A afterward with Dr. Uwe Boll himself. My buddy and I were going as a bit of a lark, expecting the movie to be about as terrible as you'd expect. And, boy, was it ever, but I'll get to the how and why in a moment.
Dr. Boll spoke to the audience briefly before the movie--and, to clarify a moment, the man actually is a doctor. I used to think folks used that as a pejorative, but, no, he sorta stumbled backward into a doctorate of German literature. Anyway, Boll said Postal is his answer to all of the "Hollywood bullshit"--a favorite phrase of his--out there. He said you look at the comedies coming out today, the Superbads and the Will Ferrell movies, and you've got a good 20 minutes and the rest is shit (Meet the Spartans, maybe 60 seconds). Since 9/11, Boll asserts that we've watered everything way the hell down, and that Postal is exactly the over-the-top kick in the pants the world needs. He stressed it's important to watch the film in that context.
So, I did. Or I tried to. Boll's biggest complaint with the avalanche of online criticism he receives is he thinks it's largely unfair. Most of the folks railing on him haven't actually seen his movies, only snippets here and there. The ire toward him comes from reading the reviews of those who have seen (and disliked) his work, so it's ultimately second-, third- or fourth-hand bashing. Which, y'know, is actually pretty fair. Hell, I was in this camp. I'd seen pieces of Bloodrayne and Alone in the Dark on TV, some clips of House of the Dead on YouTube, but I'd never had the pleasure a seeing one all the way through. So I thought, fuck it, let's give this movie a fair shake. Let's judge it on its own terms and see if we can't have a little fun while we're at it.
That didn't last long...
It opens in the cockpit of American Airlines Flight 11 with the two hijackers, en route to the World Trader Center, discussing the validity of this notion they'll be greeted by X number of virgins in the afterlife. One guy says it will be 100, the other says he heard it's 99. They start to bicker about, how can we be certain of anything if there's a discrepancy like this? So they call Osama and he's unable to guarantee them any more than 20 virgins each. They debate some more over whether or not this is good enough considering it's eternity we're talking about here, and the moment they change their minds and decide to head for the Bahamas instead, the passengers crash in through the cockpit door, United 93-style, and try to retake the plane. Cut to a POV from inside the North Tower as a window washer works outside, the plane approaching over his shoulder. It moves closer and closer, flies right into camera and we explode into the title screen.
Obviously, this sequence is designed to offend. It's meant to be rude and crass and disrespectful... and funny. Well, guess what? I didn't laugh once. Putting aside whether or not I was offended by the content--I was--the scene just didn't work. Sure, joking about the number of virgins waiting for you in the next life is funny enough, but the timing, the rhythms, the performances are all off. So what you're left with is a scene that's simply rude and crass and disrespectful, one that uses the tragedy of 9/11 as an ironic punchline. I suppose Boll's argument would be, good, that's the slap in the face I need. Except no, no it's not. If this is Boll's attempt to directly confront the sensitivity and political correctness surrounding 9/11, I think he's either missed the point entirely or is incapable of finding the point. He later claimed in the Q&A that the son of a 9/11 victim approached him after a screening to tell him how much he enjoyed the movie. And I could tell by the look on his face and the sound of his voice--that was all the validation he'd ever need. This guy gets it. This guy understands what I'm going for. Well, guess what? I get it too, and it's not at all fucking funny.
The most offensive thing about the rest of the movie is its alarming mediocrity. There's nothing especially terrible about Boll's filmmaking other than the fact that he clods around with one of the heaviest hands I've ever seen. Every beat, every gag, every moment is telegraphed ten steps ahead--even the "no, he couldn't possibly go there" ones. The action is clunky and poorly choreographed and the characters exist as hollow archetypes. This movie is supposed to burn, it's supposed to hurt, it's supposed to get under your skin. Well, the only way you do that is with exacting precision, and there ain't a deft moment in this whole goddamn thing.
The story is simple: you follow Postal Dude through his shit life until Uncle Dave (Dave Foley, as some sort of hippie cult leader) tells him he's in some money trouble and they need to steal a shipment of Krotchy dolls, the new must-have toy parents will pay anything for. A not-so-sleeper cell of Taliban agents is also after the shipment because they've hidden vials of bird flu in each of the dolls. (I'd tag that as a spoiler, except they never, ever get back to it. Seriously, they NEVER resolve what the hell happened to all the bird flu rattling around in the back of the truck.) Throw in a paraplegic, a racist cop (Crash homage!), a 500-pound nymphet, Verne Troyer, a dozen or two others and Uwe Boll himself as a lederhosen-clad Nazi, and boy, oh boy, does "hilarity" ever ensue.
Except that it doesn't. Because it's just not funny.
Sure, there were a good handful or two of folks throughout the theater who were laughing all the way through, so maybe it's just not my sense of humor (I tend to like "funny" in my comedies). I will say the one gag that made me chuckle (taken directly from the game, according to Boll) is when Postal Dude uses a housecat as a makeshift silencer. He sticks a handgun up the cat's ass and shoots a terrorist with a PFFT!--then the cat hops off and goes about its day. Aside from Boll himself during the Q&A, that was the best part of the affair. Speaking of which...
When discussing how they filmed the scene where Verne Troyer is raped by 1,000 monkeys (you read that right), Boll said, "Ze monkey is unpredictable. You could not have zem in with Verne or zey might rip him apart"--to which the interview interjected, "Or maybe even rape him!" Boll considered. "Yes, but zis would not be so bad, if only ze raping."
That was the moment I fell in love with Uwe Boll.
Okay, not exactly, but the guy is incredibly charming in person. He's very knowledgeable and well-spoken, and he only slips into the crazy every now and again. I can totally see how he suckers investors in. He discussed his financing a bit and it turns out everything you've read about his films as tax shelters is true. I'm no economist so I take the guy at his word, but according to Boll, just about anyone in Germany, Canada or--yes--America can dump a few million into a film production and write it off on their taxes, with the outside chance that they will return a profit. It's meant for the smaller movies; there are restrictions so the studios don't abuse this to same themselves billions. But it's real and this guy's doing it.
Throughout most of the Q&A, Boll positioned himself as the David to Hollywood's Goliath, the little man raging ever so bitterly against the corporate machine. He kept stressing how dire it was that outside voices are being suppressed by conglomerate-run studios and distributors. This segued into Boll's recent altercations with Michael Bay, and he again inferred that any idiot with $200 million and Industrial Light and Magic at his back could make the movies Bay makes. "70% of his movies are special effects and second unit work, which other crews produce. When it comes to the drama and the characters, his movies fail." I found it curious though that Boll said he liked Iron Man, the exact type of Hollywood fare he rails against. It made me wonder if his truer objection was against BAD Hollywood movies... or maybe that he's not invited to make them. And it was somewhere around then it occurred to me: is Uwe Boll really the champion of independent cinema? How did it come to this?
The "stop making movies" petition was brought up and Boll clarified his earlier statement that he would only stop making video game movies should they reach 1,000,000 signatures. He'll very much continue working. From here it became a discussion of his critics and how little he thinks of "nerds," "geeks" or damn near anyone on the internet. They even got him to speak on his recent lawsuit against Billy Zane, in which Boll claims Zane swindled him out of box office receipts from Bloodrayne. Boll said he saw a $450K wire transfer to Zane's personal account, which Zane called a "finder's fee." My buddy and I looked at each other and said, he's so not supposed to be talking about this.
And that was my evening with Uwe. There's a great deal more to the Q&A that you can hear by checking out the Creative Screenwriting's podcast (search for them on iTunes), and I highly recommend it. I had a great time listening to Boll speak, and I realized I'm actually a little glad he's making movies. I will never, ever go out of my way to see one of his again, but the character of Dr. Boll is an engaging presence as something of an antagonist. Do I recommend you check out Postal? Absolutely not. It is a terrible, terrible film that fails miserably at its satire and I hope against hope that it bombs miraculously. But I have some newfound respect for Dr. Boll. He believes in what he's doing--and, hey, if nobody else believes in you, you damn sure better.
Postal gets a 2/10.
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