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analysis w/e 14.5.11 |
DVDs out 9.5.11 |
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@ DVDfever Youtube |
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May 11 2011 
DVDfever co uk
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Postal begins with two suicide bombing terrorists about to crash a plane into one of two particular towers, whilst arguing over the phone with Osama Bin Laden about the number of virgins they'll get when they die. This actually sounds like it has promise in terms of a satire, but it's not long before the joke begins to fall flat. Before long we learn that the lead guy in the film, only known to us as Postal Dude (Zack Ward) gets a rude awakening when he finds that his big fat wife is having it off with the redneck landlord and that he's also the nephew of evangelical cult leader Uncle Dave (Dave Foley) who doesn't believe a word of what he's peddling as long as he gets the money (like all of them then). Osama Bin Laden's next plan after the Twin Towers is not to attack more buildings, but to control the supply of Krotchy Dolls, the latest must-have toy. This scheme also features in the plans of Postal Dude, so called because he steals a postal truck, although the term "going Postal" means to go crazy and kill everyone with a gun. This film is meant to be based on a computer game - like many of director Uwe Boll's other offerings judging by his resume. I never played Postal but I've run amok with a weapon in many a game so I get the idea.
All that said, Postal has got to be one of the biggest ever wastes of 90+ mins of film time. There's a few sight gags here and there, but overall it just isn't funny for 95% of the time and it just goes from bad to worse the more you watch of it. Halfway through there's a scene with lots of people shooting, including kids getting gunned down which seemed rather distasteful, and the only light relief was a terrorist dropping their rocket launcher - which then went off, which is something I've done in Grand Theft Auto 4 One of the other few comforts in this film is a brief role from J.K. Simmons who I mostly remember as evil inmate Schillinger in the excellent US HBO drama Oz. There are plenty of other tertiary characters who get a moment to make their impact, particularly Uncle Dave's female followers, but that doesn't mean I'll be watching it again. I don't think I've ever seen a Uwe Boll film, but he has made a career out of (mostly)straight-to-video film conversions of console and computer games. Here, he even manages to get himself a cameo as himself. If I can help it, that will be the last thing I watch of his. I did quite like the end theme, however.
The film is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and looks very good throughout, being both bright and colourful. However, disappointingly for a film with a lot of explosions, it's only been recorded in Dolby Surround rather than DD5.1 or DTS and, regrettably, sometimes the music drowns out the dialogue - and the lack of subtitles does not help. The extras on this disc are just a Behind the Scenes featurette (9:11, 16:9 letterbox) that shows a day in the life on-set. Well, the camera flicks around the set while some dodgy Bavarian drinking-style music plays in the background for part of the time, while the cast and crew are shown mostly doing not a lot. Then comes a trailer (1:31, 16:9 letterbox) - if you want to relieve many of the unfunny moments again, and then comes a director's commentary... but I've had enough of Uwe Boll's output for now. The menus are static and silent, there are no subtitles on the film and the disc contains a paltry 12 chapters. Also, and I've made this point before so it's clearly falling on deaf ears but I'll continue to make it anyway, before the menu even appears, we see trailers for Reeker 2, 1968 Tunnel Rats and BloodRayne II: Deliverance, and this really shouldn't happen for DVDs since this is not the age of the rental video!
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2008.blog comments powered by Disqus
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B 37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier. PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
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