THE POSTMAN *1/2 (out of four) -a review by Bill Chambers, wchamber@netcom.ca
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starring Kevin Costner, Olivia Williams, Will Patton, Larenz Tate
screenplay by Eric Roth and Brian Helgeland, based on the
novel by David Brin
directed by Kevin Costner
Dear Kevin Costner,
How are you? What are you up to these days? How long will it be until they offer you a sitcom?
I'll bet right now you're just lounging by the pool, humming "I Will Always Love You" and wistfully recalling your candlelight dinners with success. It isn't necessarily over for you: I say you still have enough charm that you could avoid starring in "Kevin!" for at least a few more years. Begin by scribbling "the star that burns twice as bright burns half as long" somewhere you'll always see it, perhaps on the fridge door, or on a bedroom mirror with lipstick. You had a heck of a thing going there until you agreed to star in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, where you were not only upstaged by powerhouses Morgan Freeman and Alan Rickman, but Christian Slater (!), several dozen tall trees, bows, arrows, and a canoe, too.
After Dances With Wolves and JFK, you decided the world needed more three hour movies, expensive three hour movies, so you starred in and produced Wyatt Earp; Wyatt Earp the man was a boring idiot who made the history books solely due to a general lack of famous Wyatts. Wyatt Earp was so dull a cowboy that he died of natural causes. Tombstone was a vastly superior movie based on the same legend, and that featured Kurt Russell as Earp and Dana Delaney as his girlfriend! (She was played by Joanna Going in your movie-you know, the character known best in Wyatt Earp as "Jew Whore". What were you and Lawrence Kasdan thinking?)
Now, you're suffering the demise of yet another of your epics, The Postman, a film so financially disastrous that it all but eradicated the memory Waterworld's and Tin Cup's mildly lucrative box office takes. The Postman is not the worst movie ever made-people in Hollywood are quick to forget movies like Howard the Duck whenever the next bomb comes along. Yet it is a ridiculous movie. I suspect you thought you had another Braveheart on your hands-why else line up two armies on horesback, all prepared for battle, for the climax of your film?-but "Mailheart" The Postman is not. (I can think of some more appropriate alternate titles: Post Encounters of the Worst Kind; Farewell, My Salary; Howard the Postman; The Postman's Never Watched Twice...)
What a brown movie. I hate brown. You love brown. Dances With Wolves was golden and brown-it looked like an Eggo commercial. The Postman had me running for a glass of water every two minutes; would the post-apocalyptic world look this maddeningly bland and dry? What exactly happened to this desert world, anyway? Did we all become so stupid that we didn't immediately begin rebuilding homes, restaurants, and most importantly, shopping malls, after "the war"? Why did you choose to drive the movie's plot with a dumb group of terrorists who, well, terrorize townfolk across America? Why is it only *they* have ammunition, anyway? Was it really appropriate to cast your DAUGHTER as a girl who has a sweet crush on you, the drifter-cum-postman? Why cast English actress Olivia Williams as an American? Don't you realize that European women can only deliver their big emotional scenes in their native accent? (Take a look at the less-than-stellar performances of an American-ized Nicole Kidman or an American-ized Minnie Driver.) Who could give a damn whether you lived or died at the end of this movie? If it came down to a fight for leadership between you and the leader of the terrorists, why didn't you do that halfway through the film and save us all a lot of headaches? Why cast Will Patton as the bad guy? Because you worked with him in No Way Out? Sure, he's a suitably creepy villain; know why? Because he's creepy in everything, including Armageddon, in which he plays a heroic astronaut who practically slithers into his space suit! Why heroize the most demonic institution in America, the U.S. Postal System? Was Tom Petty supposed to be playing Tom Petty? If so, why didn't he look more skeletal? (He should have been around 70 years old.) Why, oh why, do I have so many questions? (I could ask plenty more.) Shouldn't a three hour running time have provided you enough space to answer everything?
You have one great line in this film, and you deliver it to a mule!: "The things I like about my ass..." I had to wonder. Actually, I enjoyed the tone of the opening scenes, a relaxed cynicism, if you'll accept such clunky phrasing-too bad you couldn't resist the temptation to film yet another love letter to your country.
Ultimately, I'm saying relax. There is no quota, no need for you to make a picture a year. Settle down. Really question future screenplays before you commit to them.
Feel free to write back. I know how much you like letters.
Bill Chambers
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