Sentimentality, Patriotism And Kevin Costner's The Postman

When people think of bloated, critically panned, post-apocalyptical Kevin Costner films, most would invariably recall 1995's Waterworld. The vast majority of film goers would fail to even mention The Postman, its far superior (and undeniably forgettable) successor. Released only two years after the theatrical failure of Waterworld, The Postman is widely regarded as signifying the end of Kevin Costner's box office appeal.

The year is 2013. After the collapse of civilisation, humanity has regressed to an 18^th Century style subsistence, banding together to form small communities where towns are walled and governed by olde timey sheriffs. Opposition comes in the form of General Bethlehem, the despotic leader of a militia that raids towns and kidnaps young men to build his army. Costner plays Reluctant Hero #6, a travelling entertainer who becomes entangled in Bethlehem's army. When Costner finally escapes their evil clutches, he finds a postman's uniform and plays the part of civil servant in order to receive sanctuary in Pine View, a nearby town. His postman charade inadvertently snowballs into an institution, with others taking up the mantle of postman and connecting towns across the US with the power of pen and paper based communication. The film theorises that it's the 'little people', the postmen and sanitation workers and parking inspectors, who are the cornerstones of infrastructure and the linchpins of civilisation. Spoiler alert – thanks to the Postman and others like him, in as little as thirty years, modern day society is restored in all its pastel wearing glory.

Unlike Waterworld, Costner doused The Postman in arching white hot streams of sentimentality and patriotism. Regardless of its lavish cinematography and guilty pleasure appeal, it's this sentimentality, ratcheted up by James Newton Howard's bombastic score, that doomed The Postman to failure and made it impossible to watch without cringing. So, for your reading pleasure, here are the Top 5 Most Cringe Worthy, Eye Rolling Scenes in The Postman:

#5: As the Postman leaves Pine View with a sack of newly written mail, this vomit inducing scene occurs:

THE POSTMAN

Times seem hard right now. But you have to believe it's getting better. Birds are migrating again. The rains are back.

The people consider him and then each other. By God, they do feel hopeful. Suddenly, Ellen, her little boy by her side, begins to sing. It's weak at first, but one-by-one the others join in. Soon the whole town is singing:

ELLEN & TOWN

'Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain. For purple mountain's majesty, above the fruited plain. America...'

The Postman looks around. They sing their hearts out. He digs his heels into the horse's flanks and rides out of town.

This excerpt from the script is slightly different to the film. In the movie, it is a young girl who begins to sing. In the aftermath of the apocalypse, who taught her this song and the patriotism that compelled her to sing it at this particular moment?

#4: In a scene that was much shorter in early versions of the script, the young postal worker, Ponytail, appears to have a schoolgirl crush on Costner's Postman. During the dance at Pine View, Ponytail approaches him to ask him to dance. He is watching Abby (Olivia Williams) and barely registers his smitten admirer. Dejected, Ponytail watches from the sidelines as Costner and Williams share some age appropriate sexual chemistry. The scene itself is fairly innocuous, clichéd and kind of sweet. It only becomes cringe worthy when we IMDB the young girl and discover she is, in fact, Kevin Costner's thirteen year old daughter. Now, I understand a father wanting to do all he can to get his daughter's foot in the door of Hollywood, so sure, give her a role in all your movies. But when your film is already 3 hours long, adding a scene where your daughter is forced to stare lovingly at you from afar (and not in a daddy daughter kind of way) might be seen as somewhat superfluous and, let's be honest, a little creepy.

#3: A young boy and his mother hear the sound of the Postman approaching, so the boy rushes outside to post his letter. Costner races by on horseback, failing to notice the earnest young boy with letter in hand. By some weird postman sixth sense, the Postman realises his error and rides back to the house. The boy stretches his arm out and, without stopping, Costner gallops past and snatches the letter from his hand. Instead of stopping and turning to head back the way he came, the Postman continues on IN THE WRONG DIRECTION. The camera lingers on the smiling face of the young boy as he watches his hero ride into the distance, causing the viewer to ponder, "Why give this kid so much screen time?" The answer, of course, is that Costner's nepotism knows no bounds. The child actor is Joe Costner, Kevin Costner's nine year old son.

#2: To add further cringe value, the movie ends thirty years in the future, with the reveal of a lopsided statue, carved to resemble Costner and the boy passing him the letter. A man watches the unveiling with a tear in his eye and whispers, "That was me." Thank you Mr Obvious. But it does beg the question - who made the statue? The only people who witnessed this event were the boy and his mother. Did the boy grow up to become a sculptor and make it himself? Did his mum? Was posting a letter the single most important event in this guy's life? Engage cringe muscles.

#1: Every single scene involving Tom Petty, culminating in the worst zip line/Henry V voice over montage ever committed to celluloid.

Could The Postman have ascended beyond mere sentimental schlock? There are a lot of things to like about the movie, especially the character of General Bethlehem - played with scene stealing gusto by Will Patton. As Bethlehem, Patton chews the scenery at every opportunity. He is a villain with no apparent redeeming qualities. We are meant to boo and hiss whenever he's on screen. And in case you didn't guess he was 'bad', he quotes Shakespeare with gravitas to prove his intellectual superiority, fails to rape Olivia Williams because of implied repressed homosexual tendencies, and orders the death of Costner's beloved horse. Why? Because Costner learned when making Dance WithWolves that the fastest way to turn an audience against a character is to show them killing the protagonist's pet. This is one of Costner's fatal errors in the making of this film. Not that the antagonist is so despicable, but that he didn't choose to play him himself. After Dances With Wolves and Waterworld, the world had grown weary of seeing Costner as the reluctant hero. Imagine, instead, that he'd played against type and cast himself as the villain. That might have been a film people would've paid to see.