December 25, 1997–January 1, 1998

movies

The Postman

Given that Xmas is a season when people get generous, tolerating any number of personal, social and commercial faux pas, it could be that Kevin Costner directing himself as a legendary post-apocalyptic mailman might seem less unforgivable than it would at some other time of year. But I doubt it. Even being generous, it's hard to call The Postman anything but retarded. Recycling ideas and images from well-known sources, it mixes mythic-hero clichés and dismal sentimentality. From its premise (The Postman With No Name reluctantly rises to some occasions, à la Seven Samurai, Road Warrior, Clint Eastwood) to its resolution (The Postman is immortalized, astride his galloping pony, as a big bruiser bronzy statue, à la Rocky), the film goes nowhere, slowly. The green-lighters for this project need to think hard about what they've done.

The scene is the not-USA, 2013: no more government, no more mail delivery. It's one of the film's more ludicrous notions that the post office becomes this grand symbol of hope, community and prosperity, but there it is. That it's a young black man (Larenz Tate) who first takes up The Postman's name and mission (even before The Postman does) is not a little bit ironic, presuming as it does that this character would have any investment in something called "the United States." (Maybe the social landscape will be radically changed by this time?). The Postman takes up his non-identity by accident: he finds a skeleton with a bag of undelivered letters and a blue uniform while escaping from his primary opponent, the brutal, self-aggrandizing, not so bright and dreadfully named General Bethlehem (the gifted Will Patton devolved to Dennis Hopper Lite). Bethlehem has an army of conscripts and a good sense of timing: he shows up when the plot needs a boost, in the form of some visible threat to The Postman.

Otherwise, he's just traveling from town to town (including one headed up by, I'm not kidding, Tom Petty), spreading 30-year-old letters and his seed. The latter is solicited by a beautiful girl, Olivia Williams, whose husband is, first, impotent, and second, killed by Bethlehem, so that she's freed up for the imperative romance with TP (that's The Postman, not Tom Petty). By the time she's come round to love TP, so that she's teary instead of complacent at his parting (he leaves her a lot during the film's three hours), he's got to head off to do mano-a-mano battle with Bethlehem. Caught in a deadly headlock, TP is challenged by the General to come up with something that will move him to action. Gasp, gurgle, grunt. Then he actually says, "I believe in the United States." In a word, gag me.

—Cindy Fuchs