Postal (film)
Encyclopedia
Postal is a 2007 Canadian-American-German black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...

 action film
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...

 co-written and directed by Uwe Boll
Uwe Boll
Uwe Boll is a German director, producer and screenwriter, whose work includes several films adapted from video games. He finances his own films through his Boll KG production company. He is often cited as the worst director of all time.-Early life:...

.

Like the majority of Boll's previous films, Postal is a film adaptation
Film adaptation
Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...

 of a video game, in this case, Postal, though this film draws more heavily from that video game's sequel, Postal 2
Postal 2
Postal 2 is a first-person shooter video game by Running with Scissors, and it is the sequel to the 1997 game Postal. Both are intentionally highly controversial due to high levels of violence and stereotyping. Unlike its predecessor, Postal 2 is played completely in first-person based on the...

.

Plot

The film takes place in the town of Paradise, Arizona
Paradise, Arizona
Paradise is a ghost town in Cochise County in the U.S. state of Arizona. The town was settled in 1901 in what was then the Arizona Territory.-History:...

, where the volatile Postal Dude
The Postal Dude
The Postal Dude is the main character in the Postal video game series by Running With Scissors, Inc., as well as the film Postal. He was voiced by voice actor Rick Hunter in Postal and Postal 2, and by Cory Cruise in the upcoming Postal III, while Zack Ward portrays the character in the film...

 (Zack Ward
Zack Ward
Zack Ward is a Canadian actor.-Life and career:Ward was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of actress Pam Hyatt and the brother of Carson Foster....

), after being mocked at a job interview, kicked out of his local unemployment office and discovering that his morbidly obese wife is cheating on him, is more than a little angry and is desperate to get enough cash to finally leave his dead-end town. He decides to team up with his Uncle Dave (Dave Foley
Dave Foley
David Scott "Dave" Foley is a Canadian comedian, writer, director, and producer best known for his work in The Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio, A Bug's Life, and Celebrity Poker Showdown...

), a slovenly con artist turned doomsday cult
Doomsday cult
Doomsday cult is an expression used to describe groups who believe in Apocalypticism and Millenarianism, and can refer both to groups that prophesy catastrophe and destruction, and to those that attempt to bring it about...

 leader who owes the US government over a million dollars in back-taxes. With the help of Uncle Dave's right hand man Richie (Chris Coppola
Chris Coppola
Chris Coppola is an American actor.Coppola is best known for such films as Friday the 13th, Far Cry, Postal, Loveless in Los Angeles, The Polar Express and Beowulf.-External links:...

) and an army of big-breasted, scantily clad cult members, the Dude devises a plan to hijack a shipment of 2,000 Krotchy Dolls, a rare, sought-after plush toy resembling a giant scrotum. Uncle Dave plans to sell them online, where their prices have reached as high as $4,000 a doll.

Unbeknownst to them, Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...

 (Larry Thomas) and his group of Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...

 terrorists
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

, who had been secretly hiding in Paradise since September 11, under the watchful eye of bin Laden's best friend George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 (Brent Mendenhall), are after the same shipment, but for entirely different reasons. Hoping to outdo the catastrophe of 9/11, they plan to instill the dolls with Avian influenza and distribute them to unsuspecting American children. The two groups meet at the shipment's destination, Nazi-themed amusement park
Amusement park
thumb|Cinderella Castle in [[Magic Kingdom]], [[Disney World]]Amusement and theme parks are terms for a group of entertainment attractions and rides and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people...

 Little Germany. A fight between Postal creator Vince Desiderio and Postal director and park owner Uwe Boll
Uwe Boll
Uwe Boll is a German director, producer and screenwriter, whose work includes several films adapted from video games. He finances his own films through his Boll KG production company. He is often cited as the worst director of all time.-Early life:...

 (which ends with Boll being shot in the genitals, confessing "I hate video games"), sparks a massive shootout between the cult, the terrorists and the police, resulting in the deaths of dozens of innocent children. The Dude and the cult are able to get away with both the shipment and the park's opening day guest, Verne Troyer
Verne Troyer
Verne J. Troyer is an American stand-up comedian, actor, stuntman and performer, best known for playing Mini-Me in the Austin Powers series...

, pursued by Al-Qaeda, the police and a mob of angry citizens.

Upon returning to their compound, which has been overtaken by the terrorists, the Dude, Uncle Dave and the rest covertly sneak into the compound's underground bunker, where Richie reveals that he has must now fulfill the prophecy
Prophecy
Prophecy is a process in which one or more messages that have been communicated to a prophet are then communicated to others. Such messages typically involve divine inspiration, interpretation, or revelation of conditioned events to come as well as testimonies or repeated revelations that the...

 foretold in Uncle Dave's fictional Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

: to bring about the extinction of the human race. As per Uncle Dave's Bible, the event initiating the apocalypse is the rape of a "tiny entertainer" by a thousand monkeys. After Verne Troyer is quickly thrown into a pit of chimpanzees, Richie shoots and kills Uncle Dave, then imprisons the Dude. The Dude manages to escape the compound with a plethora of weapons, deciding to wage a one-man war against al-Qaeda, his uncle's murderer, his cheating wife, the police and the many people who want him dead. On the way to his trailer (where he plans to blow up his spouse), he meets up with an attractive young barista
Barista
A barista is a person, usually a coffee-house employee, who prepares and serves espresso-based coffee drinks.- Application of the title :...

, Faith (Jackie Tohn
Jackie Tohn
Jaclyn "Jackie" Tohn is an American actress and musician. She is also known for taking part in American Idol season 8 making it to Top 36 on season 8...

), who joins forces with him after an explosive gunfight followed later by The Dude's heartfelt but futile monologue about war. The two of them then proceed to kill all the terrorists, all the bloodthirsty townspeople, the remains of the now-mad cult, his wife, and her multiple lovers. In the midst of the shootout, bin Laden escapes to a payphone, where he calls Bush for help. Bush sends a helicopter to save him and plans for the two to rendezvous.

Having won their war, the Dude, his dog and the barista drive away in a stolen police car
Police car
A police car is a ground vehicle used by police, to assist with their duties in patrolling and responding to incidents. Typical uses of a police car include transportation for officers to reach the scene of an incident quickly, to transport criminal suspects, or to patrol an area, while providing a...

. They casually turn on the radio, only to learn that Bush has blamed the day's shootouts and explosions on China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, and has been "forced to destroy both countries with nuclear force". China, in retaliation, has unleashed 30 nuclear missiles
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...

 towards America, which are scheduled to hit in under two minutes.

The film's final shot features Bush and bin Laden skipping through a field together, hand-in-hand. As mushroom cloud
Mushroom cloud
A mushroom cloud is a distinctive pyrocumulus mushroom-shaped cloud of condensed water vapor or debris resulting from a very large explosion. They are most commonly associated with nuclear explosions, but any sufficiently large blast will produce the same sort of effect. They can be caused by...

s explode on the horizon, bin Laden laughs and says, "Georgie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...

". At that moment, all of the nuclear missiles hit, and the country is destroyed.

Cast

  • Zack Ward
    Zack Ward
    Zack Ward is a Canadian actor.-Life and career:Ward was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the son of actress Pam Hyatt and the brother of Carson Foster....

     as The Postal Dude
    The Postal Dude
    The Postal Dude is the main character in the Postal video game series by Running With Scissors, Inc., as well as the film Postal. He was voiced by voice actor Rick Hunter in Postal and Postal 2, and by Cory Cruise in the upcoming Postal III, while Zack Ward portrays the character in the film...

  • Dave Foley
    Dave Foley
    David Scott "Dave" Foley is a Canadian comedian, writer, director, and producer best known for his work in The Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio, A Bug's Life, and Celebrity Poker Showdown...

     as Uncle Dave
  • Chris Coppola
    Chris Coppola
    Chris Coppola is an American actor.Coppola is best known for such films as Friday the 13th, Far Cry, Postal, Loveless in Los Angeles, The Polar Express and Beowulf.-External links:...

     as Richard
  • Jackie Tohn
    Jackie Tohn
    Jaclyn "Jackie" Tohn is an American actress and musician. She is also known for taking part in American Idol season 8 making it to Top 36 on season 8...

     as Faith
  • J.K. Simmons as Candidate Welles
  • Verne Troyer
    Verne Troyer
    Verne J. Troyer is an American stand-up comedian, actor, stuntman and performer, best known for playing Mini-Me in the Austin Powers series...

     as Himself
  • Larry Thomas as Osama bin Laden
    Osama bin Laden
    Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...

  • David Huddleston
    David Huddleston
    David William Huddleston is an American actor, best known for his roles in Blazing Saddles, Santa Claus: The Movie and The Big Lebowski.-Early life:...

     as Peter
  • Seymour Cassel
    Seymour Cassel
    Seymour Joseph Cassel is an American actor.He first came to prominence in the 1960s in the pioneering independent films of writer/directorJohn Cassavetes...

     as Paul
  • Ralf Möller as Officer John
  • Chris Spencer
    Chris Spencer (actor)
    Chris Spencer is an Jamaican American actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He was the first host of the syndicated late night talk show Vibe, based on the magazine of the same name. He has gone on to star in several film projects such as The Sixth Man, Significant Others, and Postal...

     as Officer Greg
  • Michael Paré
    Michael Paré
    - Early life :Paré was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Joan, a homemaker, and Francis Paré, who owned print shops. He had six sisters and three brothers. Paré's father was of French-Canadian ancestry and his mother of Irish ancestry....

     as Panhandler
  • Erick Avari
    Erick Avari
    Erick Avari is an Indian American television, film and theater actor known for his roles in various science-fiction serial productions.-Early life:...

     as Habib
  • Lindsay Hollister
    Lindsay Hollister
    Lindsay Hollister is an American actress.-Biography:Hollister was born in Columbus, Ohio. She graduated from Pickerington High School and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Theatre Performance from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio....

     as Recorder
  • Brent Mendenhall as George W. Bush
    George W. Bush
    George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

  • Rick Hoffman
    Rick Hoffman
    Rick Hoffman is an American actor and is best known for his roles as Patrick Van Dorn in Jake in Progress and more recently as Louis Litt in USA Network's legal drama Suits.-Early life:...

     as Mr. Blither
  • Michael Benyaer
    Michael Benyaer
    Michael Benyaer is a Canadian actor and cartoon and video game voice actor.Benyaer was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He enjoyed playing Hadji in The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, stating, "[he] is one of the few roles for an ethnic actor that is not a bad guy...

     as Mohammed
  • Uwe Boll
    Uwe Boll
    Uwe Boll is a German director, producer and screenwriter, whose work includes several films adapted from video games. He finances his own films through his Boll KG production company. He is often cited as the worst director of all time.-Early life:...

     as Himself
  • Vince Desiderio as Krotchy/Himself
  • Carrie Genzel as Reporter Gayle
  • Mike Dopud
    Mike Dopud
    Mike Dopud is a Canadian-born film actor, television actor, voice actor, stuntman, stage actor and athlete. He is best known for playing Detective Smits in White Noise the 2005 action-horror film, Agent Turner in Alone In The Dark a 2005 action-horror film, playing Vic Hadfield in the Canadian...

     as Security guard #2
  • Richard Ian Cox
    Richard Ian Cox
    Richard Ian Cox is a Welsh-Canadian voice actor and online radio host best known for his voice acting for English language dubs of anime. Cox gained prominence for playing the character of Henry Dailey's teenaged traveler and horse rider, Alec Ramsay, in The Family Channel's Adventures of the...

     as Coffee customer
  • Julia Sandberg Hansson
    Julia Sandberg Hansson
    Julia Sandberg Hansson is a Swedish actress who has featured in several motion pictures, including Postal, The Kreutzer Sonata and Delirium Dance...

     as Mitzi

Production

According to Uwe Boll
Uwe Boll
Uwe Boll is a German director, producer and screenwriter, whose work includes several films adapted from video games. He finances his own films through his Boll KG production company. He is often cited as the worst director of all time.-Early life:...

, the German fan club for Postal contacted him, offering the possibility of the game being adapted into a film
Film adaptation
Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...

. Intrigued by the game's premise and blatant political incorrectness, Boll contacted Running With Scissors, Inc.
Running With Scissors, Inc.
Running with Scissors, Inc. is an American computer game developer based in Arizona. Their best-known title, Postal, was publicly decried by Senator Joe Lieberman and other critics due to its extreme violence....

 president Vince Desiderio, who sold him the rights under the condition that he would be involved with the script and the production. Supposedly, Desiderio and Postal 2 director Steve Wik pitched a much grittier, darker version of the Postal story, but Boll rejected it, fully intent on turning it into a comedy in order to use the film as a platform for political satire
Political satire
Political satire is a significant part of satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political arguments where such arguments are expressly...

 as well as "revenge" against the people who have protested his movies. Boll ended up writing the script with assistant director Bryan C. Knight, who had worked on all of Boll's previous video game adaptations.

Postal filmed from September 13-October 30, 2006 in Cloverdale
Cloverdale, British Columbia
Cloverdale is an historic town and designated town centre of Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, located near Langley, which is east of Vancouver. The town was founded initially as a small farm community in 1870 for its fertile land and temperate climate, and has since become enveloped by suburban...

 and Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

Worldwide release

The 114-minute director's cut
Director's cut
A director's cut is a specially edited version of a film, and less often TV series, music video, commercials, comic book or video games, that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit...

 of Postal premiered at Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

's Fantasia Festival
Fantasia Festival
Fantasia International Film Festival is a genre film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996...

 on July 21, 2007. The film made its way along several more United States and European film festivals until finally receiving a limited release in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 on October 18. It opened at #27 in the German box office, taking in $79,353 from 48 screens and banked $142,761 in its entire run. In Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 it ended its box office run after two weeks with $3,980. As of August 31, 2008, it has grossed a total of $146,741 worldwide.

American release

Despite Boll’s announcement that Postal would be given a wide release
Wide release
Wide release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing nationally . Specifically, a movie is considered to be in wide release when it is on 600 screens or more in the United States and Canada.In the US, films holding an NC-17 rating almost never have a...

 on October 12, 2007, it was delayed until May 23, 2008. Additionally, on May 16, theater distributors pulled out of their deal for a wide release of 1,500 screens to a limited release
Limited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....

 of only four screens. Said Boll of the change:
On May 20, the screen count increased to 12 screens. By the time of the film's release, it had grown to 21.

Postal opened one day after Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which led to video promotions from Boll, jokingly claiming that his film would "destroy" the other film at the box office. A number of Internet promos were made featuring Verne Troyer
Verne Troyer
Verne J. Troyer is an American stand-up comedian, actor, stuntman and performer, best known for playing Mini-Me in the Austin Powers series...

 dressed as Indiana Jones, proclaiming Postals superiority.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePGkrn03Fzwhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk0v3TD05ew

Home media

Postal received its North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 release on August 26, 2008 in both 102-minute unrated and 100-minute rated versions, as well as a 102-minute unrated Blu-ray release. Both versions feature the film's trailer, a promotional spot featuring Verne Troyer's Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...

, a featurette detailing the filming of the Little Germany scene, footage of Boll's infamous "Raging Boll" boxing matches, and an audio commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...

 by Boll. Some editions come with the full version of Postal 2
Postal 2
Postal 2 is a first-person shooter video game by Running with Scissors, and it is the sequel to the 1997 game Postal. Both are intentionally highly controversial due to high levels of violence and stereotyping. Unlike its predecessor, Postal 2 is played completely in first-person based on the...

 (Share the Pain edition) on a bonus CD.

A 114-minute director's cut was released on September 26, 2008 in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It was planned for a North American release on Blu-ray for November 25, 2008, and on DVD for January 6, 2009, but both of these releases were delayed indefinitely.

Critical reception and awards

Reception from professional critics were very negative. The film holds an 8% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

, based on 39 reviews (3 positive, 36 negative).

Positive reviews have stemmed from such notable websites as G4
G4 (TV channel)
G4, also known as G4 TV, is an American cable- and satellite-television channel originally geared primarily toward young adult viewers, originally based on the world of video games...

, UGO, Film Threat
Film Threat
Film Threat is a former print magazine and, now, webzine which focuses primarily on independent film, although it also reviews DVDs of mainstream films and Hollywood movies in theaters. It first appeared as a photocopied zine in 1985, created by Wayne State University students Chris Gore and André...

, JoBlo.com
JoBlo.com
JoBlo.com is a website primarily focused on the film industry.JoBlo.com was started in 1998 by Berge Garabedian , a movie reviewer who is known for critiquing movies from the perspective of an average movie-goer. The website's name is, in fact, a play on the term Joe Shmoe, and registered users of...

, and MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

. Additionally, some previous detractors of Boll’s work have recanted their opinions of the director after seeing Postal.

The film was nominated for three Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Supporting Actor (Boll as himself), Worst Supporting Actor (Troyer as himself), and Worst Director (Boll). Despite critical condemnation, Postal won two awards at the Hoboken International Film Festival: Best Director and the festival's top prize, Best of Festival.

Sequel

Boll stated shortly after the film's production that he would most likely make a Postal 2, even if it went direct-to-video
Direct-to-video
Direct-to-video is a term used to describe a film that has been released to the public on home video formats without being released in film theaters or broadcast on television...

. As of September 2010, a sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...

 has yet to be announced. However, Boll will make an appearance in the Postal III game.

Trivia

  • This is one of Boll's favorite films alongside with In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
    In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
    In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale is a 2006 fantasy action film directed by Uwe Boll, inspired by the Dungeon Siege video game series. It was produced by Brightlight Pictures and distributed by Freestyle Releasing and Vivendi Entertainment in the United States and Canada. 20th Century...

    .

  • This is Boll's second movie where the hero apparently has no name.

  • In one scene, Vince Desiderio calls Boll a nazi.
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