Dear God (1996) 4.9
When letters written to God start getting results, and replies, people everywhere are amazed. The Post Office however is annoyed. Director:Garry Marshall |
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Dear God (1996) 4.9
When letters written to God start getting results, and replies, people everywhere are amazed. The Post Office however is annoyed. Director:Garry Marshall |
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| Watch Trailer 0Share... |
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Greg Kinnear | ... | ||
| Laurie Metcalf | ... | ||
| Maria Pitillo | ... | ||
| Tim Conway | ... | ||
| Hector Elizondo | ... | ||
| Jon Seda | ... | ||
| Roscoe Lee Browne | ... | ||
| Anna Maria Horsford | ... | ||
| Kathleen Marshall | ... | ||
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Isadora O'Boto | ... | |
| Felix Pire | ... |
Ramon
(as Felix A. Pire)
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| Donal Logue | ... | ||
| Sam McMurray | ... | ||
| Nancy Marchand | ... | ||
| Larry Miller | ... | ||
Tom Turner is a con man, defrauding people from their money with a variety of two-bit hustles. One night he makes the mistake of attempting to hustle some undercover cops, and finds himself in court faced with the dilemma of either going to jail or getting a real job. Choosing to stay out of jail, he gets a job at the post office working in their Dead Letter Office helping to sort Dead Letters (i.e. mail which, for whatever reason, can't be delivered). Some of the mail he recieves can't be delivered because it's addressed to God, and he accidentally answers (sending them money in the process). This starts the ball rolling as more of his co-workers get in on the idea of helping people by answering "God" mail. Written by Afterburner <aburner@erols.com>
The name of Frank Capra was tossed about by some of your reviewers and rightly so. But the one film which I think this one puposely mimics and updates as a sequel but which was never mentioned by your commentators was the equally zany and warm-hearted classic, Miracle on Thirty Fourth Street (late 1940s) with Edmund Gwenn as "Santa Claus." Most likely by deliberate choice the writers of Dear God chose the post office, dead letters, and a climactic final trial scene as pillars of their plot just as in the earlier movie. In 34th Street Santa's defense lawyer calls upon those dead letter postal workers to dump 100s of letters addressed to Santa Claus in front of the presiding judge to prove that by delivering these letters to this particular court room an arm of the US government definitely believes the Gwenn Santa character to be the real Claus, thereby proving him sane and undelusional. "Santa" too, like the gnome-like postal workers in Dear God, had been filling the screen with good deeds and sage advice for the length of the film. And as in Dear God, the audience (at least I was) was most delighted to see Santa and the postal workers triumph over the stuffy laws and regulations which would stand in the way of their making people's lives so much happier by their good deeds. I stand with those of your reviewers who hugged this delightful movie to their respective breasts and defended it against a cynical and humorless flock of detractors. It goes into my all-time favorites list.