Boll Fighting

Director Uwe goes Postal on his critics

VANCOUVER -- Uwe Boll has never been a conventional filmmaker. Shunned by Hollywood and consequently forced to raise funds for his movies himself, the German director's recent projects have been based on videogames, making way for such bargain-bin botherers as Alone in the Dark and BloodRayne. These movies are certainly not famed for being good, but Boll's internet critics (by which we largely mean "trolls from IMDB forums") go slightly further, having quite literally called for Boll's life.

A lesser director would just shrug off such derision. Then again, a lesser director wouldn't have used Romanian prostitutes as actors in BloodRayne. Nor would a lesser director undertake a film like Boll's current production, Postal, which is derived from a videogame so violent it was banned in Australia. And a lesser director certainly wouldn't box five of his biggest critics and film it for future use as a DVD bonus feature.

When Boll first put out a call for critics willing to box him several months ago, his loudest detractors fell oddly silent. But as Boll pointed out to Eye Weekly right before the fight -- in annoyed, Teutonic tones that suggested he should be allowed to do otherwise -- "I cannot force people to come here. They are really pussies hiding behind nicknames from the internet." Instead, a ragtag bunch of publicity-hungry scrappers, including one journalist who's never seen a Boll film, signed up late last month for a fight in Vancouver, where Postal is shooting.

Speaking of Postal, the movie seems set to take Boll to a high watermark of controversy, and the boxing match stunt perfectly complemented it. The overarching plot of the film remains baffling -- neither cast nor crew could shed any light as to what it is about -- and a gentle rummage through the script doesn't provide good signs. What's clear is that it's another shoot-'em-up, this time with hillbillies and an attempt at political commentary that spares no one. Even the Queen isn't sacred in the Raging Boll's latest:

"We will fuck Queen Elizabeth," he says, presumably about the film. "We want to kill Chinese drivers over 50. We have Little Germany in the movie. There is a mini-concentration camp also. I think we make fun out of everything. This is the best approach."

And the suicide bomber named Mohammed in the script?

"Look, it's only a guy, his name is Mohammed. Every Arab number five is Mohammed."

The film ends with George Bush and Osama Bin Laden skipping hand-in-hand through a field. A big-screen Daily Show, this ain't.

Predictions about Postal aside, the boxing match was always going to be an uneven affair, pitting Boll -- a trained boxer -- against three interweb geeks and a 17-year-old. But the final knockouts came even faster than expected. For the first victim, webmaster Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka, it couldn't finish fast enough -- he tried to rush Uwe before the bell in order to get disqualified on a technicality. Floored by a direct punch, he rebuffed Boll's calls for him to get up and carry on, arguing, "No, you hit me in the face."

The next competitor, Variety intern Jeff Sneider, put up a more spirited fight -- his effort was rewarded post-fight with an oxygen mask. Toronto's own Chris Alexander, from Rue Morgue magazine, made it the furthest by going deep into a second round with Boll, but even he was dispatched with some serious-looking cuts and bruises. The last hope was amateur boxer Chance Minter, 17, who'd spent two days skulking around in a hoodie like the Sith Lord of Boxing. Forgetting, perhaps, that the kid wasn't a critic, Boll pulled no punches: event sponsor www.goldenpalace.com threw in the towel for Minter after just one round -- no doubt keen to avoid a reputation for child abuse.

In roughly 10 minutes of actual fighting, all four critics were dispatched with little to show but an impressive array of bruises, both physically and to the ego.

But the whole one-ring circus, not to mention the apparent content of Postal, points to a bigger question regarding Boll: does he genuinely care about his films and the criticism they receive? Or is he a fantastic self-publicist capable of stringing together any old schlockbuster to make a buck?

While in Vancouver, I spent a day as an extra on Postal (be sure to look out for my acting debut on the film's release -- you can spot me as a gun-toting hillbilly with a full-length mullet, doing naughty things to my "wife" on top of a dryer in scene two). On set, the director seemed to spend virtually all of his time on the phone. Conflicting direction from sundry assistants led to chaos and re-shoots.

Boll does provide a spirited defence of his work, though, and is determined enough to get his films made without Hollywood money. "If you're Eli Roth, and you're the son of Joe Roth [sic], then you say after Cabin Fever that it was so hard to make your first movie. Or the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola -- she had it so hard, all that bullshit. The thing [that] pisses me off [about] the internet critics -- I had no connections to the film industry."

Boll is clearly as passionate about his ideas as he is about self-promotion -- and those are passions so vehement he's willing to hit people in the head over them. But his regard for detail in execution seems to be missing, which doesn't bode well for the director's prospects of breaking his trend of box-office bombs. It's a massive challenge to meet, but when you're dealing with Uwe Boll, you never know what might happen between now and Postal's 2007 release date. "I like Man on the Moon with Jim Carrey," he says. "Sometimes you have to do something really, like, strange. Why not?"