Film / Postal (2007)

aka: Postal Film

"I regret nothing."

A loose 2007 film adaptation of the Postal video game series by Uwe Boll.

Five years after 9/11, an unemployed loser known only as The Postal Dude (Zack Ward) joins his cult leader relative Uncle Dave (Dave Foley) in a scheme to steal thousands of the vulgar Krotchy Dolls. Little do they know that Osama bin Laden (Larry Thomas) and his Al-Qaeda minions also have their eyes set on that same shipment...

The film bases most of its inspiration on the second installment in the series, mainly featuring just allusions to the work.

Not to be confused with the 2019 indie dark comedy Postal by Tyler Falbo.

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This film contains examples of:

• Author Avatar/Breaking the Fourth Wall: Vince Desi himself - director of Running With Scissors - eventually reveals himself to fight Uwe Boll for the latter making (and ruining) the very movie you're watching.
  Vince Desi: Boll, I'm Vince Desi. What the fuck did you do to my game Postal?
• Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop:
  • Officer Greg is a complete asshole of a cop who in every scene he is in is one of the meanest characters you will see in the whole film. Some of his actions include murdering an innocent old woman, picking on and abusing a mentally handicapped man in a wheelchair for cheap money, having sex with The Postal Dude's wife behind his back, and all around just being a complete douche.
    [Greg has just obliterated an old Chinese driver who was stopped at a green light, with a shotgun]
    John: What happened?
    Greg: [casually] I think she called me 'nigger'.
  • His partner John is simply depicted as an incompetent foreigner who watches and lets Greg do his terrible actions without question. Luckily, they get their just deserts when they get trapped in The Postal Dude's trailer because his wife is too fat to fit through the doorway just as the bomb destroys the block.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Mohammed and Richard, both of whom have separate motives for wanting the Bird Fluz, oppose each other throughout the film and only work together during the Enemy Mine situation below.
• Boom, Headshot!: How Richard is ultimately killed.
• Camp Gay: Richie, Dave's assistant, is not the least bit subtle in his performance.
• Celebrity Casualty: George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden (still alive at the time) are killed by a nuclear blast, Uwe Boll gets shot in the crotch and dies, and Verne Troyer is "violated to death" by chimpanzees.
• Death by Adaptation: Vince Desi, Osama Bin Laden and Uncle Dave are all killed at various points in the film, when in the video game they're all either alive and well or weren't killed till much later in sequels after the movie released.
• Death by Cameo: Director Uwe Boll himself has a cameo as one of the many victims during the massacre scene. Specifically, he gets shot in the dick.
• Death of a Child:
  • During the raid on the Nazi theme park, a huge gun fight breaks out resulting in the deaths of a lot of children. We even get an aerial shot of the mass of dead child bodies as a news reporter pretends to be sad during her live coverage of the event.
  • In a horrifying later scene, where the Postal Dude runs over a baby stroller with his van. We even hear a lovely splat as it happens.
• Deep South: Paradise in the film has many elements of this, even more so than the games.
• Directionless Driver: Played for laughs with the prophet Mohammed as the Directionless Driver and Osama bin Laden as the exasperated passenger.
• Dirty Coward:
  • Uncle Dave tries to throw his nephew under the bus when Richard turns out to have gotten too invested in his fake religion, trying to side with him and let Richard kill Postal Dude. It doesn't work and he's shot dead for his troubles.
  • During the final shootout, Osama Bin Laden flees when things start going downhill and even uses his own men and civilians as Human Shield's as he makes his exit.
  • Greg and John during the same scene also barely partake in the action, only briefly exiting the Dude's Trailer when it looks like things have calmed down and then going right back in when the shoot out restarts. They end up paying for it when they're unable to leave the Trailer before it's blown up with them inside.
  • Richard is scared shitless when he sees the Postal Dude easily killing people in physical combat, and tries to avoid hand to hand combat with him. Downplayed in that his response is justified by seeing how dangerous directly fighting Postal Dude is, and he still tries to kill him one last time with no backup left to help.
• Dirty Old Man: Two are featured sitting by a coffee shop, gleefully leering at young attractive women who walk by and bragging about their supposed sexual prowess.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Mohammed is technically the 2nd in command to Osama Bin Laden, the real leader of Al-Qaeda. However, Bin Laden has grown apathetic about terrorism and is more focused on just doing whatever he wants, leaving Mohammed as the one who's technically in charge. He's also the one who came up with the plan to get ahold of the Bird Flu
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Averted. Even within the satirical, over-the-top context of the movie, the treatment the Dude's wife gives her husband is still presented as bad.
• Enemy Mine: Al-Qaeda team up with a bunch of angry citizens as well as Dave's remaining followers, who've been tricked by Richard into believing that Postal Dude killed Dave when it was actually Richard himself in order to try and kill Postal Dude and take the Krotchey Dolls during the climax.
• "Everybody Dies" Ending: A large majority of the film's cast die throughout the movie, particularly during the shoot out in the film's climax. Then it's revealed that several nukes are heading towards America, and George Bush and Bin Laden are seen getting incinerated by a mushroom cloud. The fates of The Dude, Faith and Champ are left ambiguous as they leave Paradise, but it's not looking good for them.
  • Subverted in the (sadly only released as a German-language audio play) sequel: Both Dude and Faith survive the events and have to live in the post-apocalyptic world of Paradise City, fighting against mutated chimpanzees and of course the post-apocalyptic cowboy, a.k.a. Tom Cruise.
• Go Out with a Smile: After Candidate Welles gets bombed by a suicide bomber, his charred body flies against the window of the store he was in front of with a big teethy grin on its face.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Mohammed attempts to manipulate Abdul, the mentally challenged terrorist, to partake in a suicide bombing. Abdul later attempts to do this on some IRS Agents sent to arrest Dave. Unfortunately for the former, Abdul accidentally left his explosive belt inside the car the group has been using for transport, and presses the button just as Mohammed gets inside the vehicle to try chasing the Postal Dude, resulting in Mohammed meeting a firey end.
• Hypocritical Humor: Uwe Boll after getting shot groans his last words, "I hate video games." Except he's the one directing this movie which was based on a video game, and he directed 6 other movies based on video games. Also doubles as Self-Deprecation.
• Incomprehensible Entrance Exam: The interview process for one Incompetence, Inc. involves ever more surreal and nonsensical questions, asked by a hostile stenographer who doesn't even bother to wait for answers, until the Postal Dude snaps entirely. His outburst gets him to the top of the list.
  Interviewer: Last question. What is the difference between a duck?
  Postal Dude: ...and? [Beat] What the hell is wrong with you people?! A duck?! I came here for a job!
• In Name Only: For various reasons:
  • For starters, the film is simply called Postal, and yet gets most of its inspiration from the second game.
  • The film doesn't follow the plot of the second game, merely featuring references and brief allusions to it (Krotchy, the setting of Paradise and said town getting nuked, the police suit, the bank robbery, using cats as supressors, etc).
  • The Postal Dude isn't even depicted the same way as he is in the games. In the games The Dude is a somewhat snarky, egotistical, twisted individual with a questionable mentality who will gladly hurt people to get what he wants. In the film, he is depicted as essentially a doormat who has trouble sticking up for himself (he develops a little better later in the film, though, eventually properly going postal near the end).
  • Instead of Gary Coleman, the film has Verne Troyer as the celebrity guest instead.
• Ludicrous Gibs: When the bomb blows up under Postal Dude's trailer with his morbidly obese wife and two cops inside, huge bloody fat chunks rain down on his car miles away.
• Manchild: The first scene we see of George W. Bush has him playing with Lego bricks in the Oval Office instead of signing treaties. This mindset plays out for the rest of the movie.
• Meleea Trois:
  • The Little Germany shoot out is essentially the Postal Dude and Dave's followers vs. Al-Queda vs. the police and Little Germany security workers, with many unfortunate citizens caught in the middle.
  • The film's conflict turns out to be a 3 way one between the Postal Dude, Al-Queda and Dave's Cult being run by Richard behind his back, with there also being a group of citizens wanting to kill the Postal Dude for the Little Germany shoot-out. Though when all 4 factions show up together, it's subverted by the latter 3 all ganging up on the Dude in an Enemy Mine.
• Nazi Gold: Quoth the Bollmeister himself: "Someone has to do SOME-thing with the money!"
• Oh, Crap!: Richard has one when his revolver jams as he tries to kill Postal Dude, and another one in quick succession when Postal Dude pulls out his own revolver right before shooting him dead.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Mohammed and Richard both want to use the Bird Flu to kill countless people. The former just wants to wipe out America, while the latter wants to wipe out the entire planet due to getting too invested in Dave's fake religion.
• Plot Armor: Exaggerated and Lampshaded.
• Police Are Useless: Officer Greg and John, who even prefer letting the other civilians do the work of hunting down Postal Dude for them. See Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Postal Dude's Character Development involves him going from an Extreme Doormat law-abiding citizen to the amoral Sociopath he's known to be.
• Really Gets Around: Postal Dude's wife has apparently slept with damn near every single man in Paradise, from violent incompetent cops to a Dirty Old Man who spends his days talking with his friend about having sex with hot young women.
• Refuge in Audacity: Like the games, the movie is built on this trope, as can be expected from the opening scene. "Bahamaaaaaas!"
  • Additionally, the film contains audacious scenes, such as a suicide bomber giving somebody a hug before he explodes causing a shower of blood, and even children being gunned down.
  • If the above isn't audacious enough, then a Concentration Camp Playground, Dr. Mengle's first aid station, and swastika arm bands might be more jarring.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The two pilots in the plane at the beginning of the film when they learn that they'll only have 20 virgins when they go to heaven attempt to change course and go to the Bahamas. The passengers don't agree.
• Self-Deprecation: Uwe Boll plays himself as a pedophiliac proprietor of a German-themed Amusement Park, with said park having plenty of Nazi imagery, and him admitting to funding his films with Nazi gold. On top of that, he gets attacked by Vince Desi (the creator of the actual game), and gets shot in the crotch during a terrorist attack. And his dying words are, "I hate video games." Probably explains why almost all his video game movies are considered terrible...
• Uncertain Doom: The final fates of the Dude, Faith and Champ, driving away from Paradise before it gets destroyed.
• Would Hurt a Child: Lots of children die senselessly in the terrorist attack.

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