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Postal (2007) (part 1 of 2)
Welcome to the sixth installment of Razzie Contenders: 2009 Edition! In this special series of mini-recaps, the Agony Booth staff takes a long, unflinching look at the awful movies that got nominated (or should have been nominated) for Razzie Awards in 2009!
Check out the other recaps in this series: The Love Guru by Ed Harris, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale by Ryan Lohner, 10,000 B.C. by Jessica Ritchey, The Hottie & the Nottie by Albert, The Day the Earth Stood Still by Mark “Scooter” Wilson!
SUMMARY: In this film adaptation of the well-known literary classic, an unemployed dude, a New Age church, and the Taliban all battle for control of a truckload of stuffed scrotums containing deadly bird flu.
Teutonic auteur Dr. Uwe Boll is back again with his latest—and perhaps greatest—masterpiece, Postal. Boll, well known for his blockbuster, masterstroke adaptations of literary classics, visits that genre once again with Postal, which is, of course, adapted from Jonathan Swift’s famous satiric novel of the same name.
In the past, Dr. Boll has been accused—falsely, to these ears—of being rather too slavish in his adaptations, and following his sources too closely. Well, critics, take heed! Postal fully captures (and dare I say, improves upon) the spirit and wit of Swift’s original, while at the same time successfully moving the action to modern times. It’s gratifying, even heartwarming, to see a filmmaker such as Dr. Boll grow into his art. Dr. Boll’s earlier works like House of the Dead set the bar high; Postal shows that Boll still knows how to raise it even higher with each successive cinematic triumph.
I’m sure we all remember seeing Postal in the theaters, don’t we? We were laughing, we were crying, but most of all, we were thinking. I stood for hours waiting for my turn to experience this film, and I can still recall the almost inconceivable level of anticipation in the blocks-long line. It was a thing of wonder. Even better was the group of filmgoers that gathered outside the theater afterwards, red-eyed and spent, but better for the hour and fifty minutes spent with Dr. Boll’s vision. The group I was with didn’t talk after the film. We hugged.
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Mark M. Meysenburg
Mark teaches at Doane College, a liberal arts college in Crete, Nebraska. Most of his teaching involves computer science, but Mark also occasionally teaches mathematics and the history of science; he has also been known to offer three week courses on the worst movies ever made. Mark's bad movie obsession was kindled in the early 1980s by the Medved brothers, then fanned to full flame by late-night showings of Plan 9 from Outer Space. Who could have predicted the long term effects of satin-pajama-clad, mincing alien menace? Mark's other interests include homebrew beer and wine, and practicing and teaching martial arts.
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