Uwe Boll On Postal

27 October 2008

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German born director Uwe Boll has had a tough time with critics with his latest effort of In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, which starred Jason Statham, was universally panned by the critics.

However he returns with Postal, which also sees him pen the script for the first time since Heart of America, which is an adaptation of the video game of the same name.

I caught up with Uwe, who was on the set of his new movie Rampage, to talk about Postal, it's mixed critical reaction and it's political views.

Your film postal is about to be released on DVD here in the UK what�s it all about?

Postal is based on the video game Postal but at the same time I tried to make a very harsh political satire about the last eight years, so everything that happened after September 11th and what was leading to September 11th, and tried to show how absurd it is, the world we are living in, as well as looking at all the religions and political radicalism out there.

It is a comedy and the idea was to give a little nod back to the old Monty Python movies they were always dirty and funny and a bit slap stick and the Hollywood comedies were never able to pull it off like Monty Python and I tried with Postal, not only to be funny and dirty, but to be a little bit political. So from this point of view Postal is the most important film that I have made.

It�s loosely influenced by the 2003 video game what was it about the game that made you think that it would make a good feature film?

For me, when I played the video game, it was the absurdity of the game for example you can go in a bank and wait in a line for a week or you shoot everybody and immediately you can cash in your cheque it�s a bit of an anashiftic satire. It was the perfect set-up for me to do finally, after a lot of action movies, thrillers and sci-fi movies, to do something back where I started my career, my first movie was a comedy, so I tried to go back to that starting point. It was also the movie that I had wrote on my own after a long time where I didn�t write and only made movies from scripts written by other people and for me it was important to get back to the situation of earlier days.

Well that sort of leads me into my next question it�s been a while since you wrote your last screenplay to a film that you have gone on to direct why did you decide to return to screenwriting?

It was for me personally it was super important because I felt that I had been totally misinterpreted from the critics and they hated my movies and the whole hate campaign started on the internet after I made House of the Dead, and not a lot of people saw my other movies from before like Heart of America is a very good film about school violence but not a lot of people saw it and then I started getting shit for House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark and Blackrain and that was disappointing for me.

So I felt like I had to sit down and try something on my own and what I saw with Postal was the opportunity to present the real me and put something back in the movie that was missing from the genres that I did before.

And how does the writing process work for you?

It was not easy I�m not the guy who can write a script in two weeks and it�s different for me to keep focused and keep going then pull it all together, check it again and talk to other people about it it�s not an easy process. But I am happy I did it and I think it was, for me, an initial yeah bang moment I�m now on the set of my new movie Rampage, which I also wrote, so I think Postal was a moment that was important for me to get back to the real filmmaking process of me developing and writing the movie and I think that it is a way better movie than the other genre movies that I have done before.

And what was it like returning to the genre of comedy that most of us don�t know you for?

It was fun, and of course Postal is very violent so I had a lot of action scenes it�s not a talking comedy, and from this point of view I enjoyed doing action and funny but at the same time I think the key element was to find the right actor for it. And with Postal we were so lucky that in every single part we have a very good comedian playing it we have Dave Foley and J.K Simmonds and so with so many good comedy actors in so many parts they help bring the comedy to life and because English is not my first language I had a couple of co-writers to help polish the dialogue and finally the actors went over the dialogue again and this made the movie really funny.

Postal is a dark political comedy are the political views your own?

No I think it is absolutely something that I would sign off on and I think it shows that it�s totally absurd to believe that you can make a better world by killing people or that religion means anything or makes anything good if you use violent methods to serve your god or your religion is a completely stupid idea.

But at the same time I wanted to show that the whole Bush government basically fucked up the whole politics in the last eight years and that the same type of scariness in the Bush government as is in the fundamentalists. I think a lot of people in the last six or seven years are all scared, we are all scared in what direction the world is turning and if McCain and Palin get elected it would be horrific for the rest of the world because Palin is an even bigger retard than Bush and I think that it was really time to unpick the hem in a feature and really hit everyone in the balls so that we don�t leave any religious direction or political direction safe.

I really wanted to make a moving showing that we have the right of free thinking, the right of free speaking and the right to do what we want if we think it�s funny and for me it was important to show that we were not self-centred like all the studio movies, because all these studio movies are politically and socially correct.

How worried were you about the reaction to this film is an American audience ready to laugh at Al Qaeda jokes?

This was a disappointing point when we were trying to pick up a theatrical release we only got fourteen screens it the exhibitors almost boycotted because they thought it was too radical and to dirty. But in England First Revolver bought the movie and they couldn't get a screens they really like the film but a lot of English exhibitors were scared because of the fundamentalists they said that there was too big a Muslim community.

So I think that the scary film, if you make a movie like this, you see the problems that you run into like in France for example Metropolitan wanted to buy it but they think the fundamentalist in France are too strong and they don't want to release it and it shows the state of mind that we are all in.

And what was the reaction of those around you when you were making the movie did they ever try to talk you out of any particular jokes? And was there any material that you thought went a bit too far?

Not the actors they really went for it but, for example, when we sent the script to the casting agencies they were all resistant to give us actors. So we held a casting and all the actors came to the casting and they said that 'we are almost here against the wills of their agents but we really want to be part of this movie we like that there is a radical comedy coming up that's not like Meet the Zohan but more radical.

Then the production company here in Canada thought that it was too hot and radical and I had team members, who had done my other movies, were not willing to do scenes in Postal because of the violence and because of the content and that was very disappointing for me. But I kept it the way that I wanted it and I'm really proud that I did the movie that was non-compromising.

Zack Ward possibly isn't the first name that you think of for an action-hero leading man did you immediately see him in the role?

No we went out for some named actors for the role first, Rob Schneider had an offer, of course we went for a named actor because we wanted to sell the movie and then it didn't work out. Zack Ward came to the casting and he played one of the cops, the part that Chris Spencer played in the movie, and I saw him and we looked at the tape again and talked to the producer and said ;' this is the Postal hero he's perfect'.