Subject: Review: The Postman (1997)

From: [email-masked] (pm agapow)
Date: 10 Sep 1999 06:08:54 GMT

[video] "The Postman"
A Postview, copyright 1999 p-m agapow

Once again, Kevin Costner spends far too much time, money and
seriousness on a slim tale. He plays an itinerant actor who reluctantly
becomes a symbol of freedom. But then, everyone thinks they're an actor
in this film.

"The Postman" (or, as it is called on the arthouse circuit, "Ill
Postino") was a project with "deadmeat" engraved across its forehead
even before it left the studio. A po-faced film of epic intent, helmed
by an actor everyone seems to love to hate, it is a worthy successor to
"Waterworld". But is it really as bad as all that? Sort of.

This is how it is. Kevin Costner is a scavenger, wandering the deserts
of a post-comfy era. And not for the last time, you think about how far
we have fallen where a world-famous actor is called "Kevin". But anyway,
the Kevster finds an abandoned garage and lounges there for a while,
talking to himself. "Things I like about my ass," he muses. But he's not
talking about the famed Costner tush (which obviously was holding out
for a more challenging role) but the mule that is our hero's only
friend.

Kev drags his ass down to a local town. It is revealed that he earns his
living moving from grungy town set to grungy town set, doing Shakespeare
for the locals. (Of course, there's only one of him, so he has to stick
his ass on stage.) But just after Kev has finished acting with his ass,
the bad guys ride into town for a bit of casual terrorism and extortion.
Kev tries to sneak his ass out of town, but the army spots his ass.
Conscripted into the army, Kev is imprisoned and can only stare
longingly at his ass.  He suffers as the army whips his ass. If only he
could get free, he could save his ass. Then the sadistic army commander
serves the recruits mule for supper. And so it is that everyone gets to
have a piece of Kevin's ass. Enraged, Kev escapes and wanders into the
desolate badlands. Travel is slow, for he has no ass.

The opportunity for ass jokes having passed, the movie gets a lot duller
after this point. And the story hasn't even started, with the hour mark
looming on the horizon and as yet no mention of the eponymous postal
employee. Actually, when the original David Brin story was written,
perhaps postmen could be regarded as symbols of a smoothly running and
civil society. Today of course, they represent something different - ill
controlled homicidal rage and the need for tighter gun control. So who
better to take back a country from its oppressors?

Suffice it to say, Kev-baby eventually dons the uniform of a dead postie
and thus bluffs his way into a suspicious independent settlement. There
he is greeted as a symbol of hope and incidentally gets to have a medium
level sex scene. The remainder of the picture (and there's an awfully
big remainder) concerns how this brings hope back to the people of the
USA, while simultaneously sapping it from the audience. It's not
unwatchable, but it is the sort of film you follow out of the corner of
your eye while reading mail, doing the dishes, playing pinochle or - in
fact - doing anything else.

I'm now going to attempt to rescue some message from this mess. "The
Postman" is awful but it is certainly not much worse than a lot of films
that do respectable box-office. It has a strong female lead, an
ambiguous hero and the central story is small enough and cute enough to
make a good film. So how did it go wrong, and why is it so reviled? I
can only shrug. Maybe someone should have stepped in over the complaints
of the auteurs and said "enough is enough." (Certainly that would have
had a positive effect on the recent output of George Lucas and James
Cameron.) Maybe the critics fed off each and condemned the picture
without a chance. (As happened with "Heavens Gate".) Perhaps the process
of making a Hollywood film is essentially stochastic, more a series of
accidents than good judgement.

I can only shrug again. [*/misfire] and revision for undergraduate
economics on the Sid & Nancy scale.

"The Postman"
Released 1997.
Directed by Kevin Costner
Starring Kevin Costner, Will Patton, Larenz Tate, and improbably Tom
  Petty.

-- 
Paul-Michael Agapow ([email-masked])