This 1997 flick starring Kevin Costner shares a number of things with quite a few other of his big budget actioners; its commercial failure, coming right after box office bombs like Tin Cup and (especially) Waterworld (reputed to be more costly than any studio effort since Heaven’s Gate), nearly killed his career. Which is really too bad since the novel by David Brin on which the screenplay was based is such a terrific book.
In actuality, The Postman isn’t a terrible movie. I think it got trashed for being too similar to Waterworld, being set in a post-apocalyptic world with Costner’s character the reluctant hero who might, if he’s luckier than spit, set things on a path back to a good life for everyone. In this film, his character is called The Postman (even Roger Ebert’s review gives no other name), happy to wander the mostly empty desert of what used to be–this is 2013–the western states. The USA and all its attendant services and bureaucracies vanished in a nuclear war several years before and most people died with it.
No more factories or oil refineries or mail service, even FedEx and UPS were obliterated; there was an extended nuclear winter too which, most likely, would have killed any Americans who survived the initial blast and subsequent radiation poisoning but then, without people who would be in this movie? So Costner and his lovable trained mule Bill make do as best they can, performing bits of Shakespeare for food when they stumble across a small community.
A copy machine salesman before The War, General Bethlehem (Will Patton) is a disciple of Nathan Holn and has gathered an army with which he plans to establish a new empire. Holn was a modernized fascist writer with racist overtones before the War, which he did not survive, and Patton latched onto his philosophy, especially the 8 rules. His force is large enough to command obedience, supplies and conscripts from independent communities.
One day, while our boy and Bill are doing a bit of Macbeth for some kids, the General’s men roll into the village; he and the mule are dragooned into service. Soon, after confrontation that does little more than amuse Bethlehem, he makes a break and steals away. During the chase he stumbles into a crashed old US Post Office delivery truck, fully clothed postman in the driver’s seat. Mainly seeing this as a way to get fed he puts on the corpse’s uniform and takes a bagful of the old mail to the next town.
Some believe his bunk about a re-established United States, headquartered in the Metrodome in Minneapolis and lead by President Richard Starkey (aka Ringo Starr’s real name), while others as the scammer he is. Still, he gets fed, given a warm bed to sleep in and a lovely young bride, her husband rendered sterile in one of the war’s many plagues, to… er… impregnate. Abby (Olivia Williams) tells him its because asking another man from the town would end up causing problems after the child arrived.
In the morning he takes newly written letters with a promise to deliver when and where he can, and to return on his next circuit, in maybe 18 months. The General arrives in his wake, very amused to hear of this re-established federal government and its postal service, amused enough to burn out the post office. He also takes the now pregnant Abby. Uh oh! Thus is set the major conflict of our story.
The Postman is one of those films which uses science fiction as a sort of colorful costume, like Mad Max and Westworld, rather than a core aspect though in the novel this is not the case as Brin’s writing is more complex and considered of the changes wrought by such a cataclysm. Instead, this is mostly a western not terribly different from Costner’s (much better and more successful) Dances With Wolves.
Still, I enjoyed the script by Eric Roth (who was coming off Tom Hank’s blockbuster Forest Gump and went on to write the Oscar-winning The Insider, Ali and Munich plus The Horse Whisperer and The Good Shepherd) and even Costner’s staging and pacing, which were sparse and accelerating, respectively.
recommended