Dear God

Delivering his lines like an imitation Tom Hanks, Greg Kinnear plays a small-time con man sentenced to serve time in the L.A. post office's dead-letter department in Dear God. Soon he's reading missives addressed to the Almighty and leading his fellow postal workers on dreary good-deed missions. The schmaltz gets thick when these secret samaritans sneak around helping sick little kids and lonely senior citizens. Yet veteran TV director Garry Marshall puts them through their paces with such sitcom slickness that the whole endeavor appears to be on automatic pilot. As a theatrical release, this stultifying, overlong comedy was sheer hell to sit through. Viewing at home, it's all too tempting to hit the stop button. D-