 Dir. Uwe Boll, USA/Canada/Germany, 100 mins Welcome to Octo-Boll! With most directors, it's a sad day when they decide to hang up their filmmaking boots and move on to other projects. However, when Uwe Boll decided to bow out with the film part of his Rampage trilogy, I'd venture that more people were celebrating than commiserating. I've by no means sampled all of Boll's back catalogue – yet – and Octo-boll will be four weeks celebrating the career of a singular figure in the world of directing. With all that said, I have to say I've generally enjoyed all of Boll's work I've seen so far – the Rampage movies were really interesting and also thought Stoic was very decent in its own right. It seems to be the case that Boll's video game adaptations have generally come under the most fire, with Alone in The Dark and House of the Dead being particular vilified as terrible takes on well-loved console classics. And of course, let's not forget that today's offering, Postal, is based on a video game itself, although oddly what it's based on is actually the game Postal 2. Then again, you could scarcely call the film that because it would just confuse the hell out of everyone. Postal 2 courted an awful lot of controversy upon its release, having been banned in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Germany and Sweden. And given his reputation for movies that cause controversy, what better natural progression could there be for Uwe Boll to buy up the movie rights to make the film? To be fair, Postal seems to have been one of Boll's more popular films, and having watched it I can see why. In fact, I think this movie is genuinely a lot of fun – if you have a pretty dark sense of humour, which conveniently I do. And in a sense it's almost a perfect capture of the game – it takes many, many elements from it and follows in the extremely questionable taste laid down by the source material. Put simply it's equal parts ridiculous and offensive, and in this context – and in the hands of an outrageous individual like Boll – it just works. The story itself concerns out down on his luck lead, played by Zack Ward – known either as 'Dude' or 'Postal Dude' – who lives in a hideous trailer park with his promiscuous wife and is struggling to get a job. He's trying to go straight after a slightly vague past crime, that is until his Uncle Dave – now the leader of an obsessive religious cult – asks him to come on one final heist. Their target? The last batch of sought-after Krotchy dolls, a kids toy selling for thousands of dollars apiece online. The catch? The dolls also haver nuclear material contained within them, which is also the target of a radical Islamic terrorist group. It's hugely out there and hugely overblown, but honestly a movie of Postal could never be any other way. I think this is one of those movies that you will just love or hate. I doubt anyone will reach the end credits with a mild feeling of it being 'OK', or any sort of sense of ambivalence. In fact, I could see why someone would hate it – it's juvenile, it's offensive (almost to the point of deliberately seeking out offence), the storyline is absurd and the action is often ridiculous. But I firmly fell into the second camp – I thought Postal was just a stitch, and while it may not necessarily live long in the memory as any kind of classic there were plenty of laughs and when we got to the finale I was wearing a pretty broad smile. I've always liked comedy that pushes boundaries – well, given that this review series has been going so long you could argue I like anything that pushes boundaries – and this does it admirably. It references plenty from the game to boot, including Uwe Boll – in a cameo running the 'Little Germany' theme park – getting into a fight with the maker of the original Postal. Zack Ward is a really likeable lead who walks the line of being ridiculous yet badass expertly, and the whole thing is just loud, brash, energetic and imbued with a sense that people on set are genuinely enjoying the weirdness they're partaking in. If you feel like giving it a whirl, I'd say give it five minutes – the opening exchange will probably tell you right off whether Postal is for you or not. RATING: 8.5/10. I've said it before and I'll say it again – I don't get to watch a lot that's fun where it comes to Film Gutter, but Postal offered plenty of lewd and almost tasteless humour that tickled me all the way throughout. I just think this is a riot, and while it's not masterpiece of filmmaking there are many people out there who seem to like this one and probably a fair few that hate it. A true movie Marmite, but 8.5/10 tells you exactly where I sit! 
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