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DVDfever.co.uk – Postal DVD reviewDom Robinson reviews
Metrodome Distribution
- Cert:
- Cat.no: MTD5416
- Running time: 96 minutes
- Year: 2007
- Pressing: 2008
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 12 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Widescreen: 1:85:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £15.99
- Extras: Director’s commentary, Behind the Scenes featurette, Trailer
- Vote and comment on this film:
Director:
- Uwe Boll
(Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne 1-3, Far Cry, Postal, House of the Dead, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Seed, Stoic, Tunnel Rats)
Producers:
- Uwe Boll, Dan Clarke and Shawn Williamson
Screenplay:
- Uwe Boll and Bryan C Knight
Music:
- Jessica de Rooij
Cast :
- Postal Dude: Zack Ward
Uncle Dave: Dave Foley
Richard: Chris Coppola
Fath: Jackie Tohn
Candidate Wells: J.K. Simmons
Officer John: Ralf Moeller
Himself/Voice of Krotchy: Verne Troyer
Officer Greg: Chris Spencer
Osama Bin Laden: Larry Thomas
Panhandler: Michael Paré
George W Bush: Brent Mendenhall
Cindy: Lucie Guest
Jenny: Michaela Mann
Karen: Holly Eglington
Postalbegins with two suicide bombing terrorists about to crash a plane into one of two particular towers, whilst arguing over thephone with Osama Bin Laden about the number of virgins they’ll get when they die. This actually sounds like it has promisein 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 awakeningwhen he finds that his big fat wife is having it off with the redneck landlord and that he’s also the nephew of evangelicalcult leader Uncle Dave (Dave Foley) who doesn’t believe a word of what he’s peddling as long as he gets the money (likeall 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 computergame – like many of director Uwe Boll’s other offerings judging by his resume. I never played Postal but I’ve run amokwith 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 gagshere 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 ratherdistasteful, and the only light relief was a terrorist dropping their rocket launcher – which then went off, which issomething I’ve done inGrand Theft Auto 4One of the other few comforts in this film is a brief role from J.K. Simmons who I mostly remember as evil inmate Schillingerin 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 conversionsof console and computer games. Here, he even manages to get himself a cameo as himself. If I can help it, that will be the lastthing 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 orDTS 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 thetime, while the cast and crew are shown mostly doing not a lot. Then comes a trailer (1:31, 16:9 letterbox) – if you want torelieve many of the unfunny moments again, and then comes a director’s commentary… but I’ve had enough of Uwe Boll’s outputfor 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 menueven appears, we see trailers for Reeker 2, 1968 Tunnel Rats and BloodRayne II: Deliverance, and this reallyshouldn’t happen for DVDs since this is not the age of the rental video!
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.