Uwe Boll Goes Postal
By Dr. Theodore Mangrove
Uwe Boll’s “Postal” begins in the endlessly photogenic, thematically saturated town of Paradise, USA. The setting itself becomes an allegory for decaying empires where ordinary citizens become gears and cogs within the political machinations of history and the air is thick with class tension and sexual anxiety. Storms are raging on the socio-political horizon, which lends a certain piquance to the cultural upheaval taking place. This agitated yet all-too-familiar atmosphere provides, in the early portions of the film, some genuinely chilling enjoyment, a rush of implication and forshadowing. Big American cars strutting down the streets, whispers of scandal and political conspiracy, all set to the implacable rhythm of heavy rock music. Although an original screenplay by Uwe Boll and Bryan C. Knight, the film has the feeling of literary adaptation. “Postal” is a classical example of how the transmutation of literature into film has made the latter into an equal art form.
Much of the delight of Mr. Boll’s literary dialogue comes from inflection and redundancy. His characters tend to reiterate words, both their own and other’s, a device that forces you to be cognizant of both the musicality of the language and the inherent subtext of words — the angled longings, the allusions to distress, homo-erotic undertones of American politics. Homo-eroticism is another theme that Boll employs in both a literal and symbolic sense. “I just wish I knew how to quit you” Osama bin Laden tells George W. Bush, echoing the homosexual cowboy romance in “Brokeback Mountain” while adding an inescapable metaphor of an empire stripped of it’s masculinity.All of the actors are outstanding — Zack Ward as the “Postal Dude” captures the confounding urgency of a man who senses a world gradually bereaved of certainty and meaning; Michael Benyaer as “Mohammed” combines Freudian psychology with Three Stooges slapstick to construct an inefficable vignette that is at once the sum of all Western fears of the dark-skinned Other. His character is sure to draw attention away from the blasphemous cartoon of Mohammed published in Danish newspapers. But it’s Larry Thomas as “Osama bin Laden” who surprises here — after years of under-appreciated performances, he wears bin Laden like a cultural mirror — reflecting more about the psychology of American culture and racism than the infamous dweller of Afghani caves.
Many will mock or put down “Postal” as an action movie version of “Freddie Got Fingered.” In truth, “Postal” reflects the self-reflexivity endemic to French new wave cinema such as Goddard’s “A Bout de Souffle” while also interweaving the meditations on violence in films such as Peckinpah’s “Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia.” The common perception of Uwe Boll is that he’s a philosophical comedian obsessed with the aesthetics of mise-en-scene, but in many ways, Boll is also a methodical moralist — and in “Postal” he creates a canvas to explore in the labyrinthian layers of the American Empire, and in the lives of those who live there.
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I have long regarded Uwe Boll as one of those misunderstood artistic geniuses, like the master of personas Andy Kaufman, the infamous “goat gland doctor” John R. Brinkley and Albert Abrams, inventor of radionics. Hey, how many film director’s have a PhD in literature?
Did you hear about the petition to get Uwe to stop making films? Sign the counter petition to encourage Uwe to keep making them! http://www.digitalartsinstitute.org/support_uwe_boll/
Uwe Boll is a pathetic idiot who couldnt even make a good film with the cast he had in In The Name of the King. Anyone could have made a good film with those actors. Execpt Uwe Boll. I cant understand how he got them to do the movie in the first place with all the bombs hes had in the past. He must have paid them a huge amount of cash to be in his film is the only thing i can figure. For those of you that thing he is a good director. There really isnt anything i can say. So sad.
His movies have no lasting appeal of any sort. He has no vestage of genius if he can’t utilize the genre and economy he is entering. All opinions otherwise are easily dismissed.
The guy that wrote this review must not watch movies, to think anything boll does as art. I wonder how much money did boll give you for a good review to one of his horrid attempts to be liked.
i think what the reviewer wrote is true to an extent, uwe boll in fact is a great director and given 100 mil to do this movie would have made it better than transformers, so to speak.
actually i think postal was his best one. other ones sucked horribly
Is this a joke? This review is a joke, right? It certainly made me laugh, so I’m guessing it’s a joke. I’d like to think that I can see through all forms of sarcasm, but sometimes I just don’t know.
Because honestly, the common perception of Uwe Boll is that he is a complete nut-job who makes terrible movies and challenges his critics to fist fights.
Just awful, awful movies.