Terry Pratchett's Going Postal

"Has anyone ever told you, how beautiful you look, when considering violence?"

Moist von Lipwig (Coyle) is a con man and successful forger.  He is caught and sentenced to hang for his crimes. But Lord Vetinari (Dance) gives him a second chance: become the new Postmaster and revive the dilapidated post office or die.  Lipwig accepts the job and plans to escape and restart his career, but is captured by Mr. Pump (Farrell and Van Den Broeke), the golem assigned to watch him.

The Ankh-Morpork post office is in ruins, with most people choosing to send their messages by the Clacks system: a series of towers that send coded messages.  The Clacks are run by Reacher Gilt (Suchet), an unscrupulous man who is willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power.  The post office is overrun with years of undelivered mail and is manned by the elderly Tolliver Groat (Sachs) and pin enthusiast Stanley Howler (Bonar).  He also meets and falls in love with Adora Belle Dearheart (Foy) the owner of the Golem Trust.  Can he survive long enough to restore the post office?


"Going Postal" is the 33rd book in Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.  Pratchett started the series in 1983 and wrote 41 books for it before his death in 2015.  The entire series takes place within Discworld, but the stories mostly stand on their own.  "Going Postal" is the first in the series to feature the character of Moist von Lipwig, who served as the narrator for 2 more stories ("Making Money" and "Raising Steam").

The series is incredibly popular, selling over 80 million copies and translated into 30+ languages.  British media company The Mob produced TV adaptations of 3 books from the series: Hogfather in 2006, The Colour of Magic in 2008, and Going Postal in 2010.  There were plans for an adaptation of Unseen Academicals, but the status of the project is currently unknown.  Each adaptation aired on Sky1 in the United Kingdom.

I have not read any of the Discworld series, but I loved Richard Coyle in Coupling and Grabbers and decided to give this film a try.  I loved it.  Coyle is magnetic on screen, you can't help but watch what he'll do next.  Pratchett created a distinctive world, with it's own rules, that is apparent as soon as the film begins.  Coyle holds his own in the lead, and is surrounded by talented actors.  Pratchett has a cameo at the end of the film.

Apparently fans of the books were disappointed in the adaptation, but Pratchett seemed to be a fan of it (he recorded an introduction to the film that appears on the DVD).  As usual, it is probably best to read the book first (and I intend to add it to my reading list).

EDIT: I have now read several of the books in the series, including this one. This was my favorite.

Terry Pratchett's Going Postal (2010) 185 minutes
Director: Jon Jones
Starring: Richard Coyle as Moist von Lipwig
David Suchet as Reacher Gilt
Claire Foy as Adora Belle Dearheart
Andrew Sachs as Tolliver Groat
Charles Dance as Lord Vetinari
Nicholas Farrell as Mr. Pump (voice)
Marnix Van Den Broeke as Mr. Pump (body)
Tamsin Greig as Miss Cripslock
Ian Bonar as Stanley Howler
Steve Pemberton as Drumknott
Madhav Sharma as Horsefry