'MOCKUMENTARY' DIRECTOR BARES TOWERING INSULT

By JILL CULORA


PLANE WRONG: Director Uwe Boll has made a film that depicts a jet smashing into a skyscraper, and those who lost loved ones in the World Trade Center are incensed.

April 15, 2007


A film expected to hit theaters in the fall shows an airliner crashing into a World Trade Center-like tower in a horrific scene right out of New Yorkers' nightmares.

The film, "Postal," would be the first mass-marketed film to mock the tragedy of 9/11.

U.S. distributor Freestyle Releasing has confirmed it's negotiating the national cinema release of the film, which is currently unrated.

Based on the ultra-violent video game of the same name, a trailer featuring the plane crash is already on YouTube.com, and critics are fuming.

"How can you parody an act of mass murder?" fumed Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles was the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, which was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.

"Eleven-hundred families got no scrap of remains. Does that mean nothing to him? Is there any line this man wouldn't cross?"

Pariah German film director Uwe Boll, who revels in his crass reputation in the industry, is unapologetic.

"It's harsh, but in the context of the movie it definitely makes sense," Boll says of the scene showing a plane heading straight for what appears to be a World Trade Center tower.

Featuring David Foley of "NewsRadio" and Seymour Cassel of "Rushmore," the film follows a few days in the life of an average Joe whose downward spiral causes him to "go postal" and embark on a violent rampage.

The pair set off to rob a Nazi-themed amusement park, only to learn the Taliban are planning the same heist. Chaos ensues, and the duo take on not only the terrorists, but political figures as well.

Boll, who also directed "BloodRayne," "House of the Dead" and "Alone in the Dark," described the $20 million film as a spoof of modern-day taboos, and declared it the harshest satire about politics since 9/11.

"It's a sad commentary on how little time it took to get from the universal condemnation of a terrorist attack on innocent people to a filmmaker's attack on the memory of innocent people in the form of a parody," Burlingame said.

Charles Wolf, whose wife Katherine's remains were never recovered after she died in the trade center, said the plane scene turned his stomach.

"The distributors of this film have a social obligation to warn people about the scenes," he said. "My wife was in the path of that plane. I think it sucks. But I'm not going to be a hypocrite and say we should ban the movie, because this is what [the U.S.] is fighting for - we're fighting for our freedom."

Cinematic.com is calling the 9/11 scene a "low-rent shock-value ploy."

But Boll said the 9/11 crash clip was being viewed out of context, and the makers of the film discussed it at length before including it in the final cut.

"We did it to show the unbelievable stupidity of suicide bombers," he said.

"Postal" is slated to screen in Germany on Sept. 27, and could be shown in Canada even before that. Produced by the Boll KG studio, "Postal" was filmed in Vancouver last September and October.

Quelle: http://www.nypost.com/


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