Released 1997
Stars Kevin Costner, Will Patton, Larenz Tate, Olivia Williams, James Russo
Directed by Kevin Costner

There are those who will no doubt call "The Postman" the worst film of the year, but it's too good-hearted for that. It's goofy, yes, and pretentious, and Kevin Costner puts himself in situations that get snickers. And it's way too long. But parables like this require their makers to burn their bridges and leave common sense behind: Either they work (as "Forrest Gump" did), in which case everyone involved is a genius, or they don't--in which case you shouldn't blame them for trying.

The movie, based on an award-winning science fiction novel by David Brin, takes place in 2013. The dust clouds have settled after nuclear war, and scattered communities pick up the reins of civilization. There is no central government. Costner is a lone figure in the wilderness and is conscripted into a neofascist army run by Gen. Bethlehem. He escapes, stumbles over an abandoned U.S. Mail van and steals the uniform, cap and letterbag of the skeleton inside. At the gates of a settlement called Pineview, he claims he has come to deliver the mail. Building on his fiction, he tells the residents of a restored U.S. government in Minneapolis. The sheriff spots him for a fraud, but the people want to believe, and the next morning, he finds letters pushed under his door. Walking outside, he discovers that all the townspeople have gathered in hushed silence in a semicircle around his lodging, to await his awakening and appearance--the sort of thing that happens in movies, but never in real life.

In a movie that proceeds with glacial deliberation, the Postman becomes a symbol for the survivors in their struggling communities. "You give out hope like it was candy in your pocket,"' a young woman tells him. It's the sort of line an actor-director ought to be wary of applying to his own character.

Summary by Roger Ebert