The Postman (1997)

Directed by Kevin Costner. Starring Kevin Costner, Will Patton, Olivia Williams, Larenz Tate, Daniel von Bargen, James Russo, Scott Bairstow, Giovanni Ribisi, Brian Anthony Wilson, Roberta Maxwell, Ryan Hurst, Shawn Hatosy, Tom Petty, Joe Santos. [R]

A mere sixteen years into the future, America has descended into post-apocalyptic disorder, and the Northwest is held in thrall by Will Patton’s feudalist militia. Kevin Costner plays a nomadic Shakespearean performer—you read that right—who, after escaping from the militia’s clutches, puts on the uniform of a deceased postal carrier and pretends to be a dispatched postman in service to the newly-restored U.S. government (led by President Ringo Starr…er, Richard Starkey), inadvertently inspiring a rebellion among scattered communions desperate for hope. It’s so hard to buy into the premise of this story/setting, one where walled-in villages have replaced modern towns and cities, automobiles are scarce to be seen yet horses are apparently everywhere, and only old people even remember what life was once like in America, that there’s nothing left in the tank for its preposterously self-serious yarn of a resourceful liar becoming a messianic mailman. There’s so much earnestness to the myth-making egomania, you can hardly believe the way Costner directs several sequences (the super-dramatic collecting of a boy’s letter on a galloping horse, later immortalized in a statue no one else witnessed(!), takes the cake), or the thudding sincerity of its character archetypes and dialogue (“You give out hope like it was candy in your pocket”). This critical/commercial fiasco could have found a second life on home video for its unintentional howlers, but that three-hour length is hard to deal with for the sake of a lot of bemused eye-rolling. Brian Helgeland and Eric Roth, two screenwriters of note, are credited for adapting the same-named book by David Brin, making me wonder how irreparable the source material is. Appearing near the end as a town leader, Tom Petty may or may not be playing himself. Mary Stuart Masterson makes an uncredited cameo at the very end.

33/100