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Dear God is a 1996 American comedy film directed by Garry Marshall and starring Greg Kinnear and Laurie Metcalf.

Tom Turner is a Con Man who owes a great deal of gambling debt to a shifty loan shark, but ends up getting caught and taken to court, where the judge decides to take mercy on Tom and gives him the chance to find honest work by the end of the week, and if he can keep the job for a full year, he will avoid going to jail. That's how Tom finds himself working at the Post Office's Dead Letter Office with an eclectic group of co-workers, including burnt-out lawyer Rebecca Frazen. After reading through one of the letters addressed to God, Tom mistakenly mails his first paycheck to the return address of a struggling mother praying for help. This catches the attention of Rebecca, and she rallies the other employees together to answer the prayers of the discarded "Dear God" letters, pushing Tom to be their leader in spite of his protests.


This movie provides examples of the following tropes:

  • Con Man: Tom Turner is one, trying to use his talents in order to make back the money he needs to pay off his gambling debts.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: Tom is caught pulling cons and brought before the judge where he is found guilty. Instead of just sending Tom to jail where he'll serve his time and just go back to scamming people, he wants Tom to learn what it's like to actually work honestly for his money. Therefore, Tom has his sentence suspended if he can find a full-time job by the end of the week and continue to remain employed for twelve months.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Played for Laughs but when the judge offers to suspend Tom's jailtime he makes it contingent that Tom work a job for one year, a 9 to 5 job, 5 days a week! Tom is horrified and asks if that's not a bit excessive ... but eventually agrees to the terms (much to the chagrin of the prosecutor and the bailiff, who think Tom should rot in jail).
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Rebecca Frazen, who is a skittish and scatter-brained former workaholic lawyer working for the Dead Letter Office since she needed a break from the courtrooms.
  • Going Postal: Played for Laughs with Herman Dooly, one of the Dead Letter employees who was a former mail worker who had to be removed from his job when it was clear the pressure was becoming too much for him. When Rebecca suggests they start answering the prayers from the Dear God letters to improve the image of the post office, Herman makes an offhand comment out that would be useful since people tend to see postal workers as just waiting for the day they show up with an AK-47 ... only to get strange looks from the rest of the office.
  • Interrupted Suicide: One letter Tom reads to God has a man detailing how he's going to take his own life and asking for God's forgiveness. Tom ends up finding the man on the beach trying to walk into the water to be swept away, and forcibly pulls him out, saving him (although the man is not too happy about it, at first). Finding out the man is desperately lonely and thinks of himself as too ugly and gnarled to ever find another person to love him, Tom ends up introducing him to his mother, a blind woman.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: While working as a Con Man, nothing seemed to go right for Tom, however after he starts working miracles in God's name, good things start happening for him as well. After Junior, Tom's loan shark, destroys his apartment for being late with his payments, the entire Dead Letter Office comes together to completely refurbish Tom's place. Not only that, but Junior ends up getting hit by a bus and dying, leaving no one to take over his business and basically clearing Tom's debts in full. Later, even after being arrested for stealing God's mail, the good deeds he did (even if by accident or under duress), cause the entire Post Office union to stand behind him, shutting down the city until the judge agrees to set Tom free.
  • Schmuck Bait: After word of the "Dear God" exploits start making the news, someone mails the Post Office $5000 and tells them to please use it towards their good deeds. Tom is initially tempted to pocket the money, before realizing the money is likely a trap and if he takes it, he'll be arrested. He brings it back and tells them do whatever they usually do with lost money.
  • Ungrateful Townsfolk: During his trial, the people Tom helped through answering God's letters take the stand. Most of them will admit they appreciated what Tom did, but condemn the fact he went through their letters which were basically private prayers meant for God's eyes only.
  • Unwanted Rescue: Tom rescues a man who wrote to God before attempting to end his life. When Tom saved him, the man is angry since he feels he has nothing to live for ... although Tom points out as the man had written to God that the old man wanted someone to save him.
  • Waving Signs Around: When Tom is arrested and brought before the court for doing 'good deeds' through stealing God's mail, the case is eventually resolved when the entire Post Office's union goes on a protest strike, demanding Tom's release. The judge eventually has no choice but to conceed, as long as Tom finished his previous punishment of finishing twelve months of employment.

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