It is set in a post-apocalyptic and neo-Western version of the disestablished United States in the then near-future year of 2013, 16-plus years after unspecified apocalyptic events, followed by plagues, left a huge impact on human civilization and erased most technology. Like the book, the film follows the story of a nomadic drifter (Costner) who stumbles across the uniform of a United States Postal Service mail carrier, and unwittingly inspires hope through an empty promise of a "Restored United States of America" and starts his path to become a national hero.
Released on Christmas 1997 by Warner Bros., The Postman was panned by critics, who criticized the performances, screenplay, direction, and long runtime. Costner's decision to cast himself in the film was criticized. The film grossed $30 million worldwide against a budget of $80 million. It was nominated for three Saturn Awards and won all five of its Golden Raspberry Award nominations, including Worst Picture.
Plot
In a post-apocalyptic world in 2013, an unnamed nomad wanders the scattered communities of the Utah flatlands, trading performances of long-forgotten Shakespearean plays for food and water. At one town, the nomad is forced at gunpoint into the ranks of the Holnists, a neo-feudalist militia, and is branded on his shoulder with their symbol, a figure 8. The Holnists, under their leader, General Bethlehem, are the de facto authority in the area, collecting tribute and recruits from local towns. The nomad, who is referred to as Shakespeare by Bethlehem, is threatened daily by Captain Idaho, a bigoted underling of Bethlehem's, who tells the nomad about Colonel Getty, Bethlehem's second-in-command, and how Getty once challenged him for the right to lead. Bethlehem won the fight, and then mutilated Getty by cutting out his tongue and castrating him. The nomad and another recruit are sent across a bridge to kill a lion, but Idaho arrives and forces nomad and the other recruit to fight to the death. Idaho kills the other recruit, but before he can shoot the nomad he is killed by the lion, allowing the nomad to escape by jumping into the river. He takes refuge in a long-deceased postman's mail vehicle, burning letters and putting on the postman's coat to stay warm.
With the postman's uniform and mail bag, he arrives in the settlement of Pineview claiming to be from the newly-restored U.S. government. He convinces Pineview's leader, Sheriff Briscoe, to let him in by showing a letter addressed to elderly villager Irene March. The postman inspires a teenager named Ford Lincoln Mercury, who asks to be sworn in as a member of the postal service and even helps him to reactivate the long abandoned post office in the town. The postman also meets spouses Abby and Michael, fulfilling their clinical request to impregnate her. When the postman leaves for the town of Benning, he carries a pile of mail left at the post office door by the townspeople.
During a raid of Pineview, General Bethlehem learns of the postman's tales of a restored government in Minneapolis and becomes afraid of losing power if word spreads. He has the post office burned to the ground, kills Michael, abducts Abby, and raids Benning looking for the postman. The postman surrenders, but Abby saves him from execution, and the two escape into the surrounding mountains. A pregnant Abby and an injured postman ride out the winter in an abandoned cabin. When spring arrives, they leave and run into a girl, who claims to be a postal carrier. She reveals that Mercury has kept the postal service alive by recruiting other carriers and building more post offices. They have established communications with other settlements, creating a quasi-society and inadvertently spreading hope.
Bethlehem continues to hunt and capture postal carriers, all of whom are executed and displayed publicly. Feeling responsible, the postman orders the service to disband and writes a letter to the militia revealing the truth. However, Bethlehem learns to his dismay that the postman's example has spread farther than he could have anticipated when his men capture a carrier from California, and he redoubles his efforts to find the postman. The postman and Abby, closely followed by young carriers Eddie, Ponytail, and Billy, travel to Bridge City. When Bethlehem's scouts catch up, the mayor helps the postman escape on a cable car and urges him to find others willing to resist Bethlehem. Before he leaves, he and Abby reciprocate their feelings and fall in love.
The postman rallies his mounted followers to war, meeting the Holnists across a field. Not wanting any more carnage, the postman instead challenges Bethlehem to a personal hand-to-hand duel with their troops as witnesses. Bethlehem says only Holnist members may challenge for leadership. The postman then reveals his figure 8 brand and recites King Henry V's speech prior to the siege of Harfleur, prompting Bethlehem to recognize the postman as the one he called Shakespeare. Acknowledging that it is his privilege to challenge due to once having been a member of the Holnists, Bethlehem agrees to the fight. The postman wins the brutal fight, but spares Bethlehem's life to maintain morale. Bethlehem tries to shoot the postman in the back with his revolver, but is shot dead by Colonel Getty. Getty then surrenders his rifle, and the rest of the Holnists follow his lead.
Thirty years later, the postman's grown daughter Hope, accompanied by other public figures and servicemen (including postal workers), speaks at a ceremony unveiling a bronze statue by territorial waters in St. Rose, Oregon, in tribute to her father, who has recently died (1973–2043). Her speech, along with the fact that all the attendees are wearing modern clothing and using technology, reveal that the postman and his mail carriers' actions have helped rebuild the United States.
On his personal website, author David Brin reveals that while studios were bidding for The Postman, his wife decided during a screening of Field of Dreams that Kevin Costner should portray the title character.[5] Brin agreed that the emotions evoked by Field of Dreams matched the message he intended to deliver with his novel. A decade later, after learning Costner would be cast as the lead, Brin said he was "thrilled".[5] Costner discarded the old screenplay (in which the moral message of the novel had been reversed) and hired screenwriter Brian Helgeland; Brin says the two of them "rescued the 'soul' of the central character" and reverted the story's message to one of hope.[5] Costner supposedly passed on the lead role in Air Force One to work on The Postman.[6]
In an interview with Metro before filming began, Brin expressed his hope that The Postman would have the "pro-community feel" of Field of Dreams instead of the Mad Max feel of Costner's other post-apocalyptic film Waterworld. Brin said that, unlike typical post-apocalyptic movies that satisfy "little-boy wish fantasies about running amok in a world without rules", the intended moral of The Postman is that "if we lost our civilization, we'd all come to realize how much we missed it, and would realize what a miracle it is simply to get your mail every day."[7]
The Postman was filmed in Metaline Falls and Fidalgo Island in Washington; central Oregon; and southern Arizona around Amado and Nogales. Metaline Falls is the location for the community of Pineview in the film.
Despite the film performing disastrously at two test screenings, Costner refused Warner Bros.' appeals that he edit it from its three-hour running time.[8]
The film was a notable failure at the box office. The first four days after opening brought in only $5.3 million on 2,207 screens in the United States and Canada.[9][10] Produced on an estimated $80 million budget, it grossed $17 million in the United States and Canada and $30 million worldwide.[11][4][3]
The film was subsequently released on VHS and DVD on June 9, 1998 and on Blu-ray Disc on September 8, 2009.
Critical response
The Postman was panned by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 14% based on 41 reviews, with an average rating of 4.2/10. The site's consensus states: "A massive miscalculation in self-mythologizing by director and star Kevin Costner, The Postman would make for a goofy good time if it weren't so fatally self-serious."[12]Metacritic gives the film a score of 29 out of 100 based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[13] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.[14]
In The New York Times, Stephen Holden criticized the movie for its "bogus sentimentality" and "mawkish jingoism".[15] In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert described The Postman as a failed yet well-meant effort at a parable, being "goofy", "pretentious", and "way too long", yet "good-hearted". He criticized Costner's putting himself in the lead role, arguing that such roles should be cast against type and that Costner had played too many similar roles in past films.[16] On Siskel & Ebert, Ebert and Gene Siskel gave the film "two thumbs down", and Siskel sarcastically called it "Dances with Myself" (in reference to Costner's film Dances with Wolves) while referring to the bronze statue scene.[17]
Costner defended the film: "I always thought it was a really good movie! I always thought I probably started it wrong. I should have said something like 'once upon a time.' Because it was just like a modern-day fairy tale — it wraps itself up with a storybook ending with the statue. You know, I thought it was a pretty funny movie set against the idea of a Superman — somebody stepping up. But in this case, it’s a very humble guy who's nothing but a liar [laughs] — delivers mail and burns half of it just to stay alive. So, I like the movie."[18]
In 2023, Rolling Stone cited The Postman as one of the fifty worst decisions in film history.[19]
Glen David Brin is an American science fiction author. He has won the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards. His novel The Postman was adapted into a 1997 feature film starring Kevin Costner.
Kevin Michael Costner is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received various accolades, including two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award.
The Postman is a post-apocalyptic dystopian science fiction novel by David Brin. It is about a man wandering the desolate Oregon countryside who finds a United States Postal Service uniform, which he puts on and then claims he is a mail carrier and federal inspector for the "Restored United States of America". His mail service and claims about the return of a central government gives hope to the people, who are threatened by a murderous, neo-feudalist militia.
Tin Cup is a 1996 American romantic comedy and sports film co-written and directed by Ron Shelton, and starring Kevin Costner and Rene Russo with Cheech Marin and Don Johnson in major supporting roles. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and performed moderately at the box office, grossing $75.8 million against its $45 million budget. Costner received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.
The 18th Golden Raspberry Awards were held on March 22, 1998, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel to recognize the worst the movie industry had to offer in 1997. This year, the film with the most nominations was Batman & Robin with 11, followed by Speed 2: Cruise Control with eight nominations, Anaconda with six nominations, The Postman with five nominations and Fire Down Below with four nominations. The film winning the most awards was The Postman, with all five categories for which it was nominated.
A mail carrier, also referred to as a mailman, mailwoman, mailperson, postal carrier, postman, postwoman, postperson, person of post, letter carrier, or colloquially postie, is an employee of a post office or postal service who delivers mail and parcel post to residences and businesses. The term "mail carrier" came to be used as a gender-neutral substitute for "mailman" soon after women began performing the job. In the Royal Mail, the official name changed from "letter carrier" to "postman" in 1883, and "postwoman" has also been used for many years.
Waterworld is a 1995 American post-apocalyptic action film directed by Kevin Reynolds and co-written by Peter Rader and David Twohy. It was based on Rader's original 1986 screenplay and stars Kevin Costner, who also produced it with Charles Gordon and John Davis. It was distributed by Universal Pictures.
William Rankin Patton is an American actor. He starred as Colonel Dan Weaver in the TNT science fiction series Falling Skies. He also appeared in the films The Client (1994), Armageddon (1998), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), Remember the Titans (2000), The Punisher (2004), American Honey (2016), Halloween (2018), and Minari (2020). He appeared opposite Kevin Costner in four films: No Way Out (1987), The Postman (1997), and Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, as well as having a guest role in seasons 3 and 4 of Costner's Paramount Network series Yellowstone (2020–2022). Patton played Deputy Marnes in season one of the 2023 TV series Silo.
At the Movies was an American movie review television program produced by Disney–ABC Domestic Television in which two film critics share their opinions of newly released films. Its original hosts were Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, the former hosts of Sneak Previews on PBS (1975–1982) and a similarly titled syndicated series (1982–1986). After Siskel died in 1999, Ebert worked with various guest critics until choosing Chicago Sun-Times colleague Richard Roeper as his regular partner in 2000.
For Love of the Game is a 1999 American sports drama film directed by Sam Raimi and written by Dana Stevens, based on Michael Shaara's 1991 novel of the same title. Starring Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston, it follows the perfect game performance of an aging star baseball pitcher as he deals with the pressures of pitching in Yankee Stadium in his final outing by calming himself with memories of a long-term relationship.
Open Range is a 2003 American Revisionist Western film directed and co-produced by Kevin Costner, written by Craig Storper, based on the novel The Open Range Men by Lauran Paine, starring Robert Duvall and Costner, with Annette Bening, Michael Gambon, and Michael Jeter appearing in supporting roles. The film was the final on-screen appearance of Jeter, who died before it was released, and the film was dedicated to Jeter's memory, as well as to Costner's parents, Bill and Sharon.
Fandango is a 1985 American comedy film directed by Kevin Reynolds. It was originally a student film titled Proof made by Reynolds while he was attending University of Southern California film school. It was a parody of Greek life at his alma mater, Baylor University. Due to his father's presidency at Baylor, though, he did not wish to portray the Baptist institution in an unfavorable light and gave it the alternative location as the University of Texas. The film is now a cult classic.
Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot is a 1992 American buddy cop action comedy directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty. The film was released in the United States on February 21, 1992. The film received highly negative reviews upon release but grossed $70.6 million worldwide.
Kevin Hal Reynolds is an American film director and screenwriter. He directed Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Waterworld, The Count of Monte Cristo, Fandango, and the 2016 film Risen. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for the History miniseries Hatfields & McCoys.
A Perfect World is a 1993 American thriller crime drama film directed by Clint Eastwood. It stars Kevin Costner as an escaped convict who takes a young boy hostage and attempts to escape on the road with the child. Eastwood co-stars as a Texas Ranger in pursuit of the convict.
Hardly Working is a 1980 American comedy film directed by, co-written by and starring Jerry Lewis and Susan Oliver, filmed in 1979, released in Europe in 1980 and then in the United States on April 3, 1981 through 20th Century Fox. This film marks the final theatrical release for Oliver, as the rest of her career only featured on several television movies and series, before her death in 1990.
Dear God is a 1996 American comedy film distributed by Paramount Pictures, directed by Garry Marshall and starring Greg Kinnear and Laurie Metcalf.
A postman is a mail carrier, a person delivering post.
James Vincent Russo is an American film and television actor. He has appeared in over 150 films in three decades.
Caravans is a 1978 Iranian-American adventure drama film directed by James Fargo based on the 1963 novel by James A. Michener. Nancy Voyles Crawford wrote the screenplay. This film represents people of Afghanistan and their tradition in Qandahar, Badakhshan cities in that time and the Kochi people of Afghanistan. The film was shot in Afghanistan and Iran and starred Anthony Quinn, Jennifer O'Neill, and Michael Sarrazin.
↑ Greene, Andy (September 25, 2023). "The 50 Worst Decisions in Movie History". Rolling Stone. Retrieved December 23, 2023. the budget for his post-apocalyptic epic Waterworld swelled to absurd heights until it was the most expensive movie in history. The film eventually eked out a tiny profit thanks to overseas markets, but it was still an enormous embarrassment for Costner. The smart move would have been to never make another movie like it ever again. Costner decided to double-down on post-apocalyptic snoozefests just two years later, when he directed The Postman and took on the lead role.
Steve Baker, Ricky Blitt, Will Carlough, Tobias Carlson, Jacob Fleisher, Patrik Forsberg, Will Graham, James Gunn, Claes Kjellstrom, Jack Kukoda, Bob Odenkirk, Bill O'Malley, Matthew Alec Portenoy, Greg Pritikin, Rocky Russo, Olle Sarri, Elizabeth Wright Shapiro, Jeremy Sosenko, Jonathan van Tulleken, and Jonas Wittenmark – Movie 43 (2013)
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