The Postman (1997)

Who will be responsible now, for these wayward children? That's a phrase that's in the book, but not the movie. I liked David Brin's tale of the communities growing up from a near-apocalypse and the conman, "Gordon Krantz." When I first saw the (overlong) movie, I was disappointed and felt Responsibility had been tossed aside. However, this tale of a traveling Shakepeare-mangler grew on me. David Brin himself defended the film, saying that the resolution of the battle between the Holnist/Survivalists and the postal carriers was good. Our drifter, accompanied by a mule, visits communities and puts on a "fractured fairy tales" version of Shakespeare for a meal and a night's lodging. Things go South suddenly, when a Survivalist army surrounds the town and drafts men/boys for the "Army of the Eight." The leader of this gang, prefers that he is the only literate person in the land, and tries to kill "Shakespeare," after turning the traveler's mule into stew. A narrow escape later, the drifter finds a U.S. Postal Service jeep, containing a uniformed skeleton and a bag of mail. Thus begins his next con job, "delivering the mail," which turns into a Crusade, led by "Ford Lincoln Mercury," his next mail carrier. Romance pops up, when he is asked to father a child for a man who "caught the bad Measles." The Holnists turn up again, and the pair flee the village. After a long Winter, the drifter and the pregnant woman return to free the village from the Holnists, who have been killing mail carriers. A final showdown with the "impotent ex-copier salesman" leads to "The Restored United States of America" and a legendary statue of The Postman. 7/10, but the book is 10/10!

This movie fits firmly in the "it's so bad it's good" category. It's so outrageous, that you just have to see how it's going to end up. The dialogue/scripts are woeful... but they are delivered with such passion that it almost leaves you breathless. At the end of the movie, I had no idea what I had just watched, but definitely felt that I had been entertained! Go figure.