The Long and Short of It: 'The Postman'

Illustration by Jenn Marie Harmeson

In "The Long and Short of It" series, Sam Watermeier writes concise reviews of long epics he's been putting off watching for years. These are the movies that came in bulky two-tape boxes back when VHS was all the rage. This bi-weekly series isn't about watching Sam torture himself; it's about watching him experience long-beloved films for the first time. (Well, this week's entry isn't long-beloved, that's for sure.)

At its best, "The Postman" is a poignant portrait of people finding solace in the past amid a dystopian future. If only its setting and villains weren't so silly.

The film opens with its star and director, Kevin Costner, wandering a barren wasteland in what seems to be the setup for a sequel to "Waterworld." The year is 2013, but it feels more like the time of the Old West, as we see Costner's character passing through tumbledown towns and trading Shakespearean performances for food and shelter in dusty taverns.

The unnamed nomad is soon forced to join Nazi-like warlords known as the Holnists. They're named after their founder, Nathan Holn, who championed misogyny, racism and violence in an effort to create a "pureblooded" society. Long story short, Costner's characters escapes their clutches and continues drifting, disguised as a postman. (He snatches the uniform and mailbag off the skeleton of a postal worker.)

This is where the film gets interesting. As society lies in a state of ruin, the nomad's delivery of the mail brings people comfort, connecting them to the world they once knew, restoring the America that the Holnists made unrecognizable. Here, "The Postman" emerges as a warm, whimsical exploration of what we take for granted.

"If we lost our civilization, we'd all come to realize how much we missed it, and we'd realize what a miracle it is simply to get your mail every day," said David Brin, the author of the novel upon which the film is based. Now, in the age of instant communication, "The Postman" makes us nostalgic and stirs up sentiment for snail mail.

This soft side of the film clashes quite awkwardly with the grisly, melodramatic subplot revolving around the Holnists. It feels like a sincere love letter to small-town America buried under a bizarre, bombastic fantasy.

Costner's character eventually forms an army of postal workers to take on the Holnists, and that's when the film flies off the rails. After much bloodshed, they try to simply talk out their differences. While this conclusion could come across as a tender testament to the power of communication, it ultimately feels like a tired ending to a bloated epic. It lands like the final nail in the coffin Costner built for himself in Hollywood with the costly, controversial "Waterworld" and this film, its spiritual successor.

"The Postman" opened in Christmas of 1997 to overwhelmingly negative reviews. It will probably be the only film in this column with a single-digit score on Rotten Tomatoes. Yes, "The Postman" is definitely flawed, but it doesn't fail to deliver some goods.