Embodiment of the unresolved conflict between actor-director Kevin Costner's before-the-camera persona and his behind-the-camera one: the boyish, bashful, self-effacing hero in a grandiose, hagiographic, self-indulgent epic. As in Waterworld, only on dry land from Utah to Oregon, the hero is a post-apocalyptic loner in quest of an elusive El Dorado, here called St. Rose, working for meals along the way by playing Shakespeare (badly) with his trusty mule "Bill" in neo-Medieval villages. Later, though, in the capacity of an imposter postman, he will become the reluctant rallying point as well as the practical means for the reunification of the Disunited States of America. Or in the ear-reddening words of others, "a savior, a godsend" and "only the greatest man who ever lived." Think of it as Re-Birth of a Nation, a movie at last to instill the missing sense of self-respect, pride, purpose, dignity in our present-day postal employees. At just under three hours, with one or two rousing moments swamped by mortifying ones (e.g., the anonymous young girl sending the hero off into the wilderness with an impromptu vocal solo of "America the Beautiful," soon joined by mixed adult chorus), the movie feels very close to endless, and yet the action in it — the spread of a legend — seems as if it must far outrun the internal clock of the heroine's pregnancy. And surely a movie of this size needs a bigger climax than a head-butt. Will Patton, Larenz Tate, Olivia Williams. (1997) — Duncan Shepherd
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