Boll Watch ‘07

Uwe Boll, German crazy man and perennial favorite for worst director of the year, is at it again. As if the shit tandem of Alone in the Dark and Bloodrayne – both among the five worst films of their respective years – wasn’t enough, Boll has decided to take his brand of bottom-feeding filmmaking to a potential new low. I’m talking, of course, about his latest film Postal, which, like most of his other features, is based on a video game. Which game it involves is beyond me, as Boll’s film appears to be a comedy that revolves around 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden. Or, at least, that’s the gist I’ve got on this. The opening scene from the movie, which features two of the hijackers from that infamous day losing faith in their scheme after discovering some discrepancy in the number of virgins they will receive in the afterlife, is available here.

I was struck by how different it felt from other Uwe Boll films in terms of the direction, script and acting; all of which approach the level of quality one might find in a legitimate film. While that bodes well for the directorial development of the man who brought us House of the Dead, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it shows promise, since I still hold a number of reservations concerning this. While the comic timing of the scene works, a friend of mine pointed out that it isn’t anything more skillful than one might find in a longer-running SNL sketch. And let’s not forget that the material is questionable enough to cast some doubt on the entire project. Most importantly, this is Uwe Boll were talking about, the man responsible for a single film starring Christian Slater, Tara Reid and Stephen Dorf. Yikes!

Yet it seems that that in some areas critical opinion is beginning to waver on the matter as some bloggers who initially railed against the previous work of Boll are embracing this as an unexpected success. Todd over at Twitch raved about it, saying that “while it certainly will offend it will do so, perhaps surprisingly, because beneath the madness it features some surprisingly pointed and accurate moments of social satire.”

Good God! Can this be for real? Isn’t this the same film that Gary Coleman supposedly turned down? Isn’t this the same movie that utilizes footage from the boxing matches Mr. Boll organized, in which he challenged film critics to fights? Isn’t this the same movie that features a full-frontal nude scene involving an aging and hefty Dave Foley?

Other bloggers remain as merciless as ever, including Chris Kohler over at Wired: Game/Life who unleashed a scathing critique of the film that compelled Uwe Boll to fire back. I can’t help but reprint Boll’s response in full here.

chris
your review shows me only that you dont understand anything about movies and that you are a untalented wanna bee filmmaker with no balls and no understanding what POSTAL is. you dont see courage because you are nothing. and no go to your mum and fuck her …because she cooks for you now since 30 years ..so she deserves it. people like you are the reason that independent movies have no chance anymore.
uwe boll

PS: POSTAL is R RATED . The MPAA understood the satire — you not — you dumb fuck

The spelling suggests the work of a five-year old, the vulgarity suggests the work of a lunatic. But this seems typical of Boll. From the stories I’ve heard about him and from what I gather from interviews with Boll himself, I picture him as some sort of half-crazed insomniac who spends every night sucking back a bottle of whiskey while searching blogs and the Internet Movie Database for negative criticism of his films and firing back with drunken, poorly written emails. Probably not too far from the truth. Anyway, the whole fiasco can be read in full here, or, better yet, a video discussing the argument is available here.

How the top tier critics will react to this remains to be seen. A better question might be how Boll will respond to them if they even bother to waste their time reviewing his films. Either way, I think I will keep my eye on this one. Last I heard it was not picked up for theatrical distribution and would likely be a direct-to-video release. Even better. If that’s true I can see it sooner and pay less for it. In the meantime, there’s always the direct-to-video release of Bloodrayne 2 to hold us over.