December 25, 1997 | There is something at once ludicrous and exhilarating about a folly on the order of Kevin Costner’s The Postman, an ungainly epic about the rebirth of hope, democracy and civil service in a post-apocalyptic America that is much, much more entertaining than it has any right to be.
Costner does double duty here as director and star, and he obviously sees himself as a heroic figure in both capacities. On one side of the camera, he is a cynical, self-absorbed drifter who evolves into a messianic living legend while wandering through an American wilderness after some ill-defined cataclysm. (Nuclear attack or biological warfare, take your pick.) On the other side of the camera, Costner shoots for the moon — or at the very least, another Oscar — by striving for massive scale in size and sentimentality.
Despite a few jokey touches — most of them designed to accentuate Costner’s regular-guy charm, though there’s also a laugh-out-loud gag involving, of all things, The Sound of Music — Postman is deeply serious, if not downright solemn, about such matters as community, responsibility and, believe it or not, flag-waving patriotism. The time is 2013, the place is the Pacific Northwest, and the post-war population is severely fragmented. Many of the survivors are clustered in isolated towns, unable to communicate with each other. Others are dragooned into a militia led by General Bethlehem (Will Patton), a self-styled military genius who takes most of his wisdom from self-help books.
After escaping from Bethlehem’s camp, Costner’s nameless wanderer tries to curry favor with the folks in various settlements by posing as a postal worker. It’s a scam, of course. But the settlers respond with unexpected eagerness. They figure that a restored U.S. Postal Service is the first sign of a restored United States of America. As a result, The Postman, as he comes to be known, is viewed as a symbol of hope and rebirth. Whether he wants to be or not.
In synopsis, The Postman may sound like a blueprint for a Saturday Night Live comedy sketch. On screen, however, the weirdly compelling plot, taken from a novel by David Brin, is all the more affecting for being played perfectly straight. Nearly three hours long, the movie is excessive and repetitive, not to mention profoundly self-indulgent. And yet, the truly shocking thing about The Postman is that, even as your mind rejects much of it as cornball hokum or, worse, recycled Waterworld mythos, your heart rejoices in the sheer audacity of a movie that is so unfashionably sincere and gee-whiz foursquare.
