THE MAILMAN

[indianasmith]

I had always thought that Kevin Costner's THE POSTMAN (which I unfortunately have not gotten to see) was supposed to be the worst movie ever made about letter carriers.  Having seen this direct-to-video piece of garbage last night, however, I can say that Costner's film would have to be a HUGE steaming shovelful of horse hockey to beat THE MAILMAN to the bottom of the cinematic barrel!

(normally I would say "SPOILERS FOLLOW"  at this point, but nothing could spoil a movie this bad . . . still, if you want to see the film and be surprised at its awfulness, avoid the following paragraph and skip down to my final comments)

   The film opens with a man and woman making out in bed (nope, no nudity yet) when her mailman husband walks in and shoots them both, then turns to the window and sees his young son watching, and puts the gun into his own mouth and pulls the trigger.  CUT to 18 years later, a cute blonde is coming home from college to doting, oblivious parents and an angry, angst-ridden younger brother with a bimbette girlfriend and a nice, clean-cut best friend who has the eye for College Girl.  Then we get to see the title character, a long-haired, wisecracking new Mailman walking around and delivering the letters.  (One of the first houses he walks up to  has a pretty brunette sunbathing in the back yard, the first of several ABSOLUTELY gratuitous nude scenes).
  Seems the new mailman, Damian Fox, is filling in for the regular carrier, who he tells everyone is vacationing in Florida.  He begins causing all sorts of mayhem, opening and destroying people's mail, pulling cruel  practical jokes (like gluing an old lady's Social Security check to the inside of her mailbox), and informing Angst Boy that he is not related to College Girl or Oblivious Couple at all since he was adopted.  Later he tells Angst Boy that he, in fact, is his REAL brother, and all about their  murderous family history.  When the citizens complain to the mayor about the Mailman's bad behavior,  he avoids punishment by telling Hizzoner that he will  rat out the mayor's two sons for drug dealing.  Meanwhile, Clean-Cut Best Friend and College Girl have struck up a blooming romance (and no, you never QUITE see College Girl nekkid although she does a lot of teasing - she must have signed one of those no-nipple contracts).  Throw in three murders, one discovery of the real Mailman's body,  plus some poisoned cats and lots of damaged/mutilated mail along the way, and two more gratuitous nude scenes, one involving lesbians, and a hitman paying a visit to the Mailman  -  then you arrive at the denoument - College Girl and Clean-Cut are kidnapped by the Mailman, and he ties her up and cuts her clothes off (except her undergarments) while her boyfriend is tied to an armchair and forced to watch.  Angst Boy comes in during the middle of it, and Mailman hands him the knife and urges him to "cut the b*****" and sever his ties with his "phony family" forever.  Angst Boy agonizes over it for a moment, then plunges the knife into the mailman and cuts his sister loose.  She runs to Clean-Cut and weeps in his arms, while Angst Boy barfs in the kitchen . . . and the Mailman's eyes pop open!!!!  Cut to Credits.

In short, this is a dreadful, low-budget, goofy, direct-to-video piece of cinematic dreck.  Of course, that could be said about nearly any movie discussed on this particular board, I guess.  It was not unwatchably bad, but there are lots of better bad movies out there.  Anybody else see this one?