Doug Trouten

Greg Kinnear plays small-time con artist Tom Turner who is forced to choose between going to jail and getting ajob. He decides to spend a year in one of America's toughest institutions--the Post Office. There, he is assigned to the dead letter office, where he winds up sorting undeliverable mail intended for Elvis, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy--and God.

Turner winds up accidentally helping the author of one of these "Dear God" letters, and that act of unintentional kindness inspires his co-workers--a wacky band of postal misfits including Tim Conway--to form a "God squad" to answer the letters to God.

Because opening mail addressed to somebody else is a crime, the "postal police" try to catch the gang. This leads to a courtroom trial and a crisis of conscience for Turner. The judge winds up letting Turner off the hook--I can't recall why, but probably because she was tired of the movie. He becomes a good guy, gets the girl and lives happily ever after.

This movie has plot holes that you could drive a mail truck through. Turner is hired by the Post Office for the holiday rush, but is placed in one of the few postal positions unaffected by holiday mail volume. The "miracles" worked by the postal crew are few and pathetic, yet they somehow become headline news and bring crowds to the post office with letters to God. A trial that lasts only one day supposedly brings the US mail system to a halt. And during the courtroom scene postal vehicles jam the surrounding streets--for no real reason. Miracle on 34th Street this isn't.

Perhaps the biggest hole in this movie is the "God-shaped vacuum" you always hear Billy Graham talking about. For, despite the title, God is nowhere to be found in this film. Nothing happens that is beyond human understanding. No one discovers faith or has faith renewed. The postal workers could have begun answering letters to Elvis rather than letters to God with only minor rewriting.

That tentative approach to spirituality is what ultimately dooms Dear God. Director Gary Marshall says his movie is about "faith and hope, not a particular religion--you don't want to preach too much." But people who are seeking faith and hope wind up turning to religion precisely because they want to connect with something bigger than themselves. All Marshall offers is a handful of losers.

Dear God seems to be Marshall's bid to establish himself as a modern-day Frank Capra, but he lacks the clear moral vision that made Capra's work so memorable. If you're looking for a cinematic fix of feel-good spirituality, do yourself a favour: Skip Dear God and hit the "classics" section of your local video store instead.

Doug Trouten is director of Evangelical Press News Service.

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