While Uwe Boll has garnered a reputation as one of the worst directors of all time, I can only surmise that those particular critics either have a very limited awareness of cinema (and clearly have not seen any films by Ulli Lommel...or Eli Roth),or are so embittered by their profession that they cannot see the insane, driven vision beneath the surface of the German mastermind's work. Those who have followed his career with masochistic pleasure have concluded that his current works have shown a legitimate upgrade in quality, and "Postal" is one of his most impressive films; while yet another loose take on a video game, Boll's proficiency with narrative structure (he co-wrote the script with Bryan C. Knight) has gotten better, as has his scene composition (few out-of-nowhere edits away from the action); and placed on the grounds of an absurd satire (a genre that many filmmakers bungle),Boll shows unfettered confidence and drive, even if the end result comes up short. Ditching the nauseating sitcom-structure that has turned Judd Apatow's films into crudely saccharine cinematic gold-mines, Boll goes for the subversive, anti-commercial jugular with "Postal"--he seems on a mission to top one offensive gag with one even more offensive, and the film (true to its title) is an onslaught of un-PC humor from start to finish. While I will say I laughed often at "Postal" and its politics (which echo the anti-consumerist diatribes that made "Fight Club" a cult classic),the comic timing is probably only spot-on about half the time; the remainder of the film's humor flows out of the absurdity of its premise: Dude (Zack Ward, the red-haired bully from "A Christmas Story") is an unemployed, lower-class guy having a bad day--in a pinch for cash, he and Uncle Dave (Dave Foley) concoct a plan to steal a shipment of Krotchy dolls from a Nazi-themed amusement park (run by Boll himself in a hilarious cameo); meanwhile, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban (camped out in the back of a convenience store, natch) are also converging on the coveted toy. Yet the plot is really just an excuse for Boll to let loose with a skewering of stereotypes, history, and blue-collar madness: while "Postal" could have merely been tasteless and humorless, its own sensitivity toward mankind's collectively repressed id shows a greater existential curiosity toward our "post-9/11" society than any Oscar-nominated tearjerker to come down the pike.

Isn't it amazing that we have to fight to keep our postal service going? Honestly, every day that I wake up in 2020, indignity after indignity piles up until I can't believe I'm not watching a horrible movie.

Clever segway into...

Speaking of horrible movies, Uwe Boll's movies make back about 1% of their budget yet he keeps making them. I have no idea who their audience is. During this movie, I started to think that this is what John Waters' films would have been like if he'd paid attention in school and never did drugs.

According to the director, the German fan club for the video game Postal contacted him, inspiring him to get in touch with Running with Scissors, the company who made the game. Boll started with the second game as his basis for this, but then decided to make the whole movie about his war with his critics - he regularly boxes them to prove that he's tougher than them, which does not prove he's a better director, but in the world of Boll I guess that's a moral victory - and to show how the victims of terrorism are not heroes, but victims. This stance needs a storyteller that understands nuance, not someone who starts his film with terrorists abandoning their hijacking only for the passengers to accidentally send the plane into the World Trade Center. This act alone guaranteed that this movie would play on barely any screens.

How soon is too soon? Pretty much any time, really.

You know how I say that people are often wasted in movies? This movie makes me judge the career choices and whether I even enjoyed any of these actors in the first place, retroactively canceling nearly everything they've ever been in like some backwards in time career nuke.

I mean, I understand that Larry Thomas is only doing conventions - well, was - as the Soup Nazi, but does that make him a good Bin Laden? Did they have a photo of J.K. Simmons having sex with a farm animal to get him into this for under a minute? How did Dave Foley end up here? I mean, I often celebrate actors who went to Italy to make films when their star dimmed, but can a celestial body really grow this dark?

If you ever wanted John Cassavetes to come back from the dead to shake the CENSORED out of someone, make it this time and make it Seymour Cassel, who really should know better. Everyone in this should. I should.

Verne Troyer gets assaulted by 1,000 monkeys to start the end of the world. That's the TV Guide capsule review of this fecund ball of junk.

As for the challenge today, there's not really any postal references here, other than the hero being called the Postal Dude, in some attempt to make this similar to the video game.

There are no peaks without valleys. Luckily, I have a new valley to place against all other films, a new absolute zero, a new bottom of the barrel several barrels below the previous barrel that I had once scraped.

You can watch this on Amazon Prime, but I wouldn't be doing my job if I told you to. It's beyond dreck, the kind of film that I would wipe my ass upon if I could find a physical copy of it. And I'm 1000% ready to do a barbed wire taipei glass death match with Boll if he wants it.

I'm not sure if it is a saying or if I'll be quoting it correctly if it is, but here goes: some of its parts are better than the sum of its parts! So I actually liked a couple of the sketches, but as a whole there were a bit too many moments that just didn't work. The humor generally speaking is just silly, so if you don't like that, you may as well stay away generally.

The movie has a sick humor, which also may also work in its favor while you watch it or against it. It doesn't take any prisoners and Boll does make fun of himself. n the other hand sometimes you can't tell how much truth there is behind the jokes. Like when he repeats that some drivers of a specific nationality have to be shot on both his audio commentaries (entertaining to listen to, to a degree by the way),you do wonder where the joke ends and the his true nature/feelings start. He surely is one who likes to provoke (which is why the audio commentaries are always a hoot to listen to, if you are not too easily offended and have a general hate regarding his personality) ...