VGMRP: POSTAL REVIEW

A third of the way through POSTAL, only the second Uwe Boll movie I have seen, the director appears as himself, in a little german beer hat. "You know, there's a lot of rumors going around that my movies are financed with Nazi gold," he says, drinking a liter of beer, "And what should I say? You know, it's true. Someone must do something with the money."

Give the man credit, when Uwe Boll offends, he offends big. The nazi gold joke barely rates compared with some of the stuff that happens in this movie. POSTAL contains scenes about what "really" happened on the first 9/11 jet; namely, that after learning they'd only get 20 virgins in heaven, they decided to fly to the Bahamas before people broke the door down and crashed the plane into the twin towers. Uh, huh.

Postal the game was just an excuse to shoot people and laugh ironically about it. The movie is about the same thing, except that it's a COMEDY! More than that, it's an OFFENSIVE COMEDY! It says so right on the box:

Notice that the quote they run with isn't a positive quote, just a descriptive one.

Black or edgy comedy should be powered by the joke, not just the desire to make people lose their lunch. SOUTH PARK has practically mastered this, where you laugh and then you balk and then you laugh at yourself for laughing. But POSTAL, even when it does get some laughs, is usually so unremittingly stupid, awful or just plain racist that even Borat would feel awkward watching it.

Some other comic adventures involve a retarded jihadist who keeps forgetting to putting on his dynamite belt; a scene where our hero, "Postal Dude," using a live cat as a silencer (I spare you which end of the cat he uses); and later, after Postal Dude makes a big speech to the assorted villains about finding common ground, and someone helpfully shouts "Well we all hate Jews!" Yikes. The movie makes time to show a naked Dave Foley, and a 'comically' obsese woman who is too fat to get out of her own trailer. I didn't mind the part where the unhelpful lady at the welfare center got run over (and then run over again, and run over again) but how about the scene where a cop blows a chinese woman away with a shotgun for being a bad driver? Black comedy is a fine line, and Boll is the kind of douche who brings a slegehammer to a surgery.

I am in a quandary. Here we have one of the most offensive movies I have ever seen. And yet, it is a movie of one of the most reprehensible, offensive game series ever made, and it's on target. So... do I bring the critical fire, or do I say mission accomplished?

The answer is this: while this movie has more to do with the game than anything that happens in SUPER MARIO BROTHERS or STREET FIGHTER, just because it's accurate doesn't make it good. Or funny. And while I may have snickered or gasped at times, this is basically 100 minutes of a man playing with napalm who shouldn't even be allowed matches.

Even the good jokes get messed up. During a bizarre interview, "Postal Dude" is asked, "What is the difference between a duck?" Pause. Beat. He stares, whispers, "And?". They stare at him. Okay, funny. But then he screams "JESUS CHRIST WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE I CAME HERE FOR A JOB WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH A COCKSUCKING MOTHERFUCKING DUCK?!" And there goes whatever bit of humor that was being developed.

Some scenes achieve a kind of doomed grandeur, that almost (but not quite) transcend the material. A gunfight at a theme park takes out so many children that it stops being horrifying and becomes kind of surreal. J.K. Simmons plays a Senate Candidate who rants, "NASA does not exist. Every space mission you've seen is a Hollywood forgery! We did not land on the moon! There is no 'John Glen'!" Too bad he gets blown up by a suicide bomber 15 minutes in. More likely, they only paid him for one days work.

The most notable thing in the entire 100 minutes is Verne Troyer, aka Mini-Me. Oh, not at first, he's basically doing the same Verne Troyer bit he always does. Then he is raped by a thousand monkeys. Seriously: a thousand monkeys, on the screen, advancing on Mini-Me; and he screams, "No, not the horny monkeys!" It's not something you see everyday. One hopes.

But in all serious-ness: if you're dating someone and you want to break up, just go visit their folks and suggest you rent this movie. You'll be out of that engagement so fast it'll make your head explode.

GRADE: Zero Stars (Out of 5)

P.S. The maker of the game POSTAL shows up, in a giant penis costume, to fight Uwe Boll for "fucking up his game POSTAL." Yes, the maker of the game fights the director of the movie IN the movie. It's not funny, but it does happen.

P.P.S.: Spoiler alert- the movie ends with atomic bombs going off and the world being destroyed, just like the million times better Dr. Strangelove. At the end of Dr. Strangelove, you were left wondering if we might all deserve to get blown up, for how stupid we are. After POSTAL, you're sure of it.