Terry Pratchett's Going Postal (2010)
A con artist is enlisted to restart the post office in Ankh-Morpork.
Genre
Characters/Groups
Moist Von Lipwig - Richard Coyle
Adora Belle Dearheart - Claire Foy
Mr Pump Voice - Nicholas Farrell
Mr Pump Body - Marnix Van Den Broeke
Sergeant Angua - Ingrid Bolso Berdal
Character thumbnails with links to profiles
Detailed Synopsis
Moist Von Lipwig talks about how the gods must have a sense of humor considering they placed the world on the back of Great A'Tuin.
An Old Lady asks a Clacks, which is a messaging service using towers and lights, Cashier to send a message to her cousin demanding they pay the money they owe her or die. John Dearheart's Clacks malfunctions and as he goes to repair it, he hears a voice and the rope he is hanging from suddenly breaks and John falls to his death. Moist pens a letter describing the past few months of his life. He starts at the beginning when he was orphaned and then sold his old family horse by painting it with shoe polish to make it look young and selling it to a Farmer. Through more horse trades he was able to buy a real diamond, which he then used to trick Sapphire into buying a glass diamond, by switching the two. He then went to the Cabbage Growers Bank where he sold fake bonds to the Bank Clerk. He buys a paper from Aggy and then trades fake money for real bonds from the Undertaker. Sergeant Angua and the City Watch start to investigate and arrest Moist after she threatens to eat Moist. He is placed in prison and uses a spoon to dig out the mortar around a stone block. After he removes the stone, he finds another stone wall, with a spoon in front of it. Drumknott claps his hands and tells Moist, he will be hung in half an hour. He is brought before Trooper who gets his signature. Drumknott walks up and tells Trooper to hurry it up on order of Lord Vetinari. Moist wakes up in a coffin in Lord Vetinari's office and offers Moist a new life and a job. Lord Vetinari offers Moist a choice, accept the job as the new Postmaster or walk out a door that leads to a chasm. Moist is given new clothes and a haircut and is told of his parole officer. Moist rides his horse out of town and throws the keys to the post office on the ground. At night, he is woken up when the post office keys are thrown at him while he is in bed. Moist tries to run away, but is cornered by Mr Pump, who tells him his safety is his utmost concern. Moist is brought back to Lord Vetinari's office and Lord Vetinari explains why he wants Moist to open the post office, so there will be an alternative to the Clacks system, which constantly goes down. Moist tries to become friends with Mr Pump by telling him he is being overworked. They arrive at the post office and Moist reads the front sign motto, which is missing a large amount of letters. Reacher Gilt watches Moist walk up to the post office and tells Horsefry, who warns Reacher that if the post office is reinstated, it could be trouble for them. Moist walsk inside and sees undelivered mail scattered everywhere. Groat runs up to Moist and introduces himself and then introduces him to Stanley who tells Moist some pin facts. Moist is given the postmaster's hat, which he refuses to put on.
Lord Vetinari has a meeting with Reacher, who tells Lord Vetinari he only answers to his shareholders. Groat takes Moist on a tour of the post office and after seeing all of the undelivered mail threatens to fire both Groat and Stanley. As Moist is about to step out, Mr Pump tells him he can track him anywhere in the world. Moist goes to Dave's Pin Exchange and asks Dave Pins to see his more risque pin magazines. He goes to deliver a letter to Parker, but Shop Girl tells him he is out back. He tells Shop Girl he is the new postmaster and she apologizes to him. Reacher rides up in a carriage and invites Moist into his carriage. He tells Moist the last four postmasters have died. Moist confronts Groat for not telling him about the deaths and bribes Stanley with a pin. Moist then promotes Groat to senior postman. Groat tells Moist about the deaths of the other postmasters and Moist thinks the ghosts of the post office are killing the postmasters. Moist tries to convince Mr Pump to let him leave, but Mr Pump tells Moist his crimes have caused the deaths of 22.8 people. Moist notices a metal tag on Mr Pump with the name of an organization called The Golem Trust. He goes to the Golem Trust and meets Adora Belle Dearheart, who initially fires an arrow at him and tells him someone threw a rock through the window due to some people's dislike for golems. Moist buys a pamphlet on golems and Adora tells him golems cannot be manipulated. He asks her out on a date, but she refuses and as he is leaving, she warns him to stay close to Mr Pump. Moist has a nightmare about his past crime where he witnesses the Farmer hang himself after the horse Moist sells him dies almost immediately after the sale. As Moist runs to the door to leave, Parker is at the door with his new fiance, who he found out from the letter Moist had just delivered, actually loved him. Parker gives Moist some wedding invitations to mail out and Groat explains to Moist how the letter system works. Moist has an idea and goes to see Mr Spools to have him print out ready made stamps and Mr Spools suggests creating a whole set of different pictured stamps. Moist then makes Stanley in charge of creating stamps. Moist goes to Hugos Hairdressing and after showing Groat and Stanley that Hugos stole the letters on their sign from the post office's motto, he requests to speak with Hugo. The Receptionist initially blows off Moist, but then runs to Mr Hugo when Moist threatens to tell Lord Vetinari about the stolen letters. The letters are then returned to the motto sign. Miss Cripslock and Otto Chriek take notes and a photo as Moist gives a news conference about the reopening of the post office. Reacher reads the paper and tells Horsefry they need to take more direct action to stop Moist. Moist goes to the Golem trust and hires all twelve available golems from Adora, and she tells him she will think about it. During the evening Moist has another vision of his crimes, this one about the fake bonds he sold, which caused the Bank Clerk to be fired and put into prison and whose family then starved to death. A large group of customers enter the post office and Stanley goes to Mr Spools to get more stamps. As Stanley is running to Mr Spools, Dave Pins tries to tempt him with some new pins, but Stanley resists. Stanley arrives and when he notices Mr Spools and his workers are cutting out the individual stamps with scissors, comes up with the idea to have perforated paper for the stamps. Moist introduces a new express delivery service and tells Mr Pump to purchase Hobson's fastest horse. Adora arrives with the golems who are given giant stamp post office badges on their chests. Adora offers to help Moist challenge the Clacks and tells him how Reacher and his lawyers stole the Clacks system from her father. Hobson arrives with his fastest horse, Boris. Moist gets on Boris with a bag of mail and he and Adora ride together to deliver the mail. They stop at the remnants of the Clacks where John died and she tells Moist, John was murdered. Gryle arrives at Reacher's office and Reacher introduces him to Horsefry. Gryle reports what he has learned about Moist and Reacher orders Gryle to kill Moist. Moist delivers the mail at Sto Lat and tells the locals if they want to mail anything to form a line behind Boris. Moist once again asks Adora on a date and she tells him maybe. He has another nightmare, this time of how the forged bonds caused the Dearhearts to lose the Clacks. The nightmare continues and Moist sees Adora switch from buying chocolates to cigarettes after her father dies.