Postal (2007, Uwe Boll)

I went into Postal expecting Boll to be like Ed Wood. He’s not. He doesn’t have any artful composition, but it’s fine. When he’s mocking American action films of the 1980s, he’s showing just as much skill as any of those directors do… it might have helped if he’d shot Panavision.

Boll doesn’t seem to be going for much with Postal in the way of artful film though. All of it, from the first or second scene, is to shock the viewer. Boll’s got some great ideas in the movie–from the racially sensitive black cop to George W. Bush’s specialized (so he can understand it) computer, not to mention the German theme park, complete with Nazis–but he can’t turn any of them into good jokes. None of the jokes work. After a while, it gets kind of incredible. There’s a shootout at the welfare office where protagonist Zack Ward goes from body to body trying to find a lower number for waiting in line. Ought to work. Really doesn’t.

The problem’s a combination of casting and writing. The script’s got real problems, some from being an adaptation of a video game, some from Boll getting more excited about what he’s saying than how he’s saying it. Osama bin Laden being disinterested in terrorist activities–unless the U.S. government is paying him to commit them–is interesting. It’s one hell of a thing to see in a film released in this country (even if Postal only did come out in a hundred theaters). Boll’s got a big gun fight where no one dies but the little kids. Because Postal‘s so distant, so obviously a commentary about media, it’s impossible not to wonder if the kids had fun with the squibs. Not for a moment is it horrific, because it isn’t believable–Boll doing it is singular… but the action of putting a scene in a film because one can doesn’t mean one should. Or, if one should do it better than Boll does it.

The scene at the Starbucks… great commentary on American culture, but not good humor.

Boll’s approach to Postal is actually somewhat solid, it simply lacks a worthwhile script. The movie’s relatively painless to watch and occasionally, dispassionately interesting. As I said before, Boll’s nowhere near as bad as his Internet detractors make him out. He’s a perfectly competent craftsman who could easily make shampoo commercials, which puts him far ahead of most of the directors Jerry Bruckheimer works with.

The acting runs lukewarm and freezing. Zack Ward isn’t very good. He’s somewhat likable, but he isn’t good. Dave Foley’s funny. Chris Coppola’s bad. J.K. Simmons has a great cameo–his presence is a little peculiar, given Postal‘s caliber, but nowhere near as much as David Huddleston and Seymour Cassel. They must have been really bored. Chris Spencer’s terrible–his first appearance kills the initial good vibe Boll’s got going.

I certainly wouldn’t recommend Postal to anyone, but I don’t regret sitting through it either.

0/4 ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Uwe Boll; screenplay by Boll and Bryan C. Knight; director of photography, Mathias Neumann; edited by Julian Clarke; music by Jessica de Rooij; production designer, Tink; produced by Boll, Dan Clarke and Shawn Williamson; released by Kinostar.

Starring Zack Ward (Postal Dude), Dave Foley (Uncle Dave), Chris Coppola (Richard), Jackie Tohn (Faith), J.K. Simmons (Candidate Wells), Ralf Moeller (Officer John), Verne Troyer (Himself), Chris Spencer (Officer Greg), Larry Thomas (Osama bin Laden) and Michael Paré (Panhandler).


RELATED

OTHER 2007 RELEASES

Dick (1999, Andrew Fleming)

Andrew Fleming’s Dick has an irresistible premise (slow-witted teenage girls take down Nixon, not Woodward and Bernstein), but it turns out not to be enough for a movie. Not even a ninety-four minute movie. Besides inspired casting of Watergate figures (Dave Foley as Haldeman is probably my favorite, but Saul Rubinek’s Kissinger is the best–and Dan Hedaya’s a perfect Nixon), Fleming doesn’t really know what to do with his story. He covers some of the Watergate stuff, but not enough. He dumbs down the revelation of evidence and so on, not really taking advantage of it for his story. Once he’s established Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams in the White House, he does a couple montages and throws in Williams’s positively icky on Nixon, but the movie’s mostly on its way toward the end. Neither Dunst or Williams really have characters–which is fine, given Dick is a farcical comedy–but Fleming doesn’t have ninety-four minutes of story either.

Dick gets long after a while, once the laughing out loud stops–usually whenever Dunst and Williams are in charge of their scenes, instead of Foley, Hedeya, or Rubinek–and I don’t think there’s a single big laugh for the film’s last hour. There’s a good Foley scene, but it’s amusing, not laugh out loud. Given the lousy pacing of that last hour, I wonder if Fleming cut some stuff out to make the movie shorter, but I doubt it. Kirsten Dunst’s character doesn’t have a story, she has a brother. Devon Gummersall, as the brother, is good. Except he’s just a funny pot-head and the film’s better when he’s around because he says funny pot-head stuff. Dunst ranges from awful to bad. She’s worse when she’s alone. Michelle Williams, halfway through, goes from dumb to not-so dumb and she’s fine in the second half. The contrast between her and Dusnt’s acting prowess is stunning. One also gets the feeling Williams heard the word ‘Watergate’ before filming the movie.

We rented Dick because a) we’d just watched All the President’s Men and b) I thought it was funnier. I remembered it being funnier. But it isn’t. The film only makes it through the second half because of Hedeya, Williams, and Will Ferrell and Bruce McCulloch as Woodward and Bernstein (Bernstein’s such a jackass I wonder if Fleming consulted with Nora Ephron). The film also benefits–more than it deserves–from the great use of the 1970s music. The end is–as I remembered while watching it–a real kicker set to Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.”