POSTAL Goes Movie!
What you've all been waiting for and the critics have dreaded!
By Bill Kunkel & Mike J

Ever since word first broke that not only was POSTAL being adapted to film, it was being done by that notorious German auteur de farce, Uwe Boll, the game and film forums have been lit up by the subject like Rockefeller Center during the holiday season.

Then, slowly but surely, word about the project began to leak out. Rumors of gags involving 9/11 and political satire broad enough to choke Deep Throat were becoming viral when Uwe stepped in and pulled off one of the great marketing coupes in film history. In a move that producer/director William Castle (the gimmick master of low budget horror films in the 60s) would have envied, “Raging” Boll challenged his Internet film critics to put up or shut up—in the squared circle!

Boll, a reputed former amateur boxer, coaxed a motley collection of critics to Vancouver while the film was shooting and proceeded to wax them in a series of short-but-brutal “exhibition” bouts broadcast live on the Internet by an offshore gambling site.

In the midst of all these wild PR stunts, however, an interesting thing appeared to be happening: Uwe Boll was making a pretty good movie. We’re going to be looking at the film and its publicity machine from several perspectives in the following article, starting with…

POSTAL: THE STORY

The film keeps faith with the game in that the lead character (played by Zack Ward) remains nameless throughout, referred to only as “Dude” and, later in the story, the “Postal Dude.” Dude lives in a ramshackle trailer park and winds up becoming innocently ensnared in an ever-escalating series of outrages. Eventually, broke and jobless, he shows up at the door of his Uncle Dave (Dave Foley), who is running a cult that seems to focus on recruiting the hottest ladies possible. Dave needs money, too, so the duo plan to hijack a shipment of the much sought-after Krotchy dolls.

The whole thing goes horribly wrong and the unfortunately-named town of Paradise winds up nuked, with George Bush and Osama Bin-Laden (Larry Thomas) seen skipping, hand-in-hand, into the Nuclear sunset.

Along the way, Boll takes potshots at every aspect of political correctness, opening with a hysterically tasteless scene set in the cockpit of one of the airliners headed for the Twin Towers and running wild himself as the owner of “Little Germany,” a Bavarian-theme park with all the Nazi trappings, boasting: “I make my movies with Nazi gold!”

The first shockwaves were felt when critics responded to advance screenings with reviews that were, in many cases, downright positive. Even showbiz bible Variety stated: “ Boll achieves a bright, big-production feel on a reported $15 million budget, with tech and design contributions adding to the colorful overall impact. Cast was encouraged to invent business on-set, resulting in some nice riffing.”

POSTAL: THE CAST

Zack Ward—Unforgettable as the yellow-toothed bully Scut Farkis in the now-classic film version of Jean Shepherd’s “A Christmas Story,” Zack had a big summer, starring as the Postal Dude and scoring a nice role in the big budget Michael Bay “Transformers” film.

Dave Foley—Those of you who remember Dave from “The Kids in the Hall” or “NewsRadio” will be getting a whole new look at him. His open bathrobe scenes have drawn comment in virtually everything that’s been written about the film. Appropriately enough, he plays Uncle Dave!

Chris Coppola—See the interview elsewhere in this issue.

J.K. Simmons—Anyone who saw the bone-chilling HBO prison series “Oz” will never be able to forget Simmons as the Aryan Brother Vern Schillinger, but the rest of the world knows him as J. Jonah Jameson from the Spiderman movies. Here he plays a blowhard politician.

Verne Troyer—Between his stints as Mini-Me in the Austin Powers films, his regressive behavior on “The Surreal Life” and his scene-stealing performance in this film as Himself, Verne may be the wildest actor, pound for pound, in the film business.

Larry Thomas—He may always be the “Soup Nazi” from two episodes of “Sienfeld” but you can learn more about him in an interview elsewhere in this issue.

Holly Eglinton—Holly went on from her role in POSTAL to become the latest anchor on the Naked News. For pictures and an interview with Holly, see previous issues of POSTAL NATION.

SIMILARITIES TO POSTAL 2, THE GAME

*The POSTAL Dude is still the protagonist

* Same trailer, bitch wife and Champ, his faithful dog

* Takes place in Paradise

* Paradise has a Terrorist Problem

* The Dude dresses like a cop at one point

* There’s a celebrity midget in town

* Krotchy Dolls

POSTAL: MOVIE COVERAGE

MikeJ made the rounds of several major events where the film’s actors showed up to pump up the volume. Here’s his report:

Dead Channels Event

The Dead Channels event went great. There were well over 200 people in attendance, some of whom were hardcore fans. Uwe, Larry (the Soup Nazi) Thomas, Zack Ward and Holly Eglinton were in attendance and did a Q&A after the movie. The crowd gave Uwe a standing ovation after the film and most of them showed up at the post-film party. I received a lot of excellent feedback on both the film and the upcoming POSTAL 3 game!

Montreal Event

The place was packed (sold out) at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, and We were on hand to do a Q&A with the crowd in attendance.  To view a video of it click here.

Comic-Con

Comic-Con was outstanding as Uwe, Zack Ward and Jackie Tohn were in attendance to do interviews with a TON of press people ranging from Entertainment Weekly to G4 to MTV! They did a signing at the Best Buy booth and we made a ton of noise with Dave Foley’s POSTAL Babes in attendance