The Postman

The Postman, Kevin Costner's latest opus, cannot help but recall his previous one, "Waterworld", since both are set in a future world in which all civilisation has ceased to exist. This film takes place in 2013, when people in the USA live in small, primitive villages isolated from the outside world. Apparently the rebel forces led by the brutal General Bethlehem are in control, but a lone man, Kevin of course, takes up the fight against the superior force. He is a loner who scrapes a living by performing Shakespeare plays in the villages he comes to. Our hero is forcibly conscripted into General Bethlehem's army, but manages to escape. By chance he finds an old, crashed mail van with letters and all the trappings, so from then on he calls himself the postman. The postman organises a whole army of postmen who re-establish the lines of communication. At the same time he instils hope, because he claims to have been sent by the lawful government. Bethlehem naturally cannot let this provocation pass, so in the end it comes to a final showdown between the postman and the general.

Restraint has never been Costner's strong point. Costner's other films have been able to carry their length, but The Postman cannot. The story is simply not good enough. Another flaw is the almost unbearable glorification of the hero, that is to say, Kevin himself. Costner's versions of the righteous hero are tolerable in his earlier output, but here he oversteps the line of what is too idealising and mawkish.