Daybreak

In a near future in New York, the (north) American society is ruled by a totalitarian government. In order to control AIDS, the HIV positive citizens are tattooed with a P on the chest and sent to quarantine.

When the teenager Blue (Moira Kelly) accompanies her best friend Laurie (Martha Plimpton) to a government clinic for examination, they are advised on the street by the boy Willie (Amir Williams) to not go to the place. While in the waiting room, Blue and Laurie witness the treatment of the staff to an old lady and they decide to get out from the clinic. They are chased by security guards but Willie brings them to his brother Torch (Cuba Gooding Jr.) that hides and protects the girls.

Blue learns that Torch is the leader of an underground movement of resistance and the government quarantine is a sham and the patients are left to die in starvation. Blue falls in love with Torch and joins the movement. When Torch is arrested by the police, he is submitted to a test and finds that he is positive. He is sent to quarantine and Blue tries to find a way to meet him.

"Daybreak" is HBO film with a promising beginning, with a society controlled by a fascist government and a group of resistance that helps the sick people, giving dignity to them. The idea of resistance against a government is not original, but is usually engaging. Unfortunately there is a twist and the story changes to an annoying melodrama between the negative Blue and the positive Torch. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Amanhecer Sem Futuro" ("Dawning without Future")

I, too, thought that this was an excellent film; the first time i saw it I was on the verge of turning the TV off for lack of anything good. Although it's genre is listed as sci-fi it's not immediately apparent that it's sci-fi, which allows you to concentrate a little more on the people and production design. The grittiness is very well done, much like Max Headroom, and the characters are very thoroughly developed throughout the first two thirds of the film. The ending is particularly good - the viewer feels genuine empathy for both Moira and Cuba's characters and is left with the feeling that these are real people in an imperfect future.

A few of the people making earlier comments missed the point of this film. The disease described wasn't AIDS-like, it was AIDS. I suspect a few viewers may be too young to remember the near hysteria of the mid to late 1980s that had otherwise rational people calling for all HIV positive people to be permanently interned.

Clearly the writer(s) of Daybreak wanted to illustrate one possible future in which fear was allowed to win out. This has a strong message to send us in 2005 too.

The love story was central to the movie as a chain is created from Ellen to Torch to Blue. Ellen was passionate about saving people. Neither Torch nor Blue started that way but took up the cause when the one they loved fell to the all powerful authorities. The lack of decisive ending, other than the continuation of the resistance, shows that not all problems are easily solved and can be nearly wrapped up in a 1.5 hour movie.

This 1993 movie is one of a long line of dystopian (also called "awful warning") stories. In this case one of the key ideas that make dystopias interesting--a fascist government using paranoia to keep the masses in line--is swamped by the romance between Cuba Gooding and Moira Kelly. Of course there is a place for love in such a story--remember Winston Smith and Julia in Nineteen Eight-Four--but in Daybreak the love story eventually overwhelms everything else, and ideas go out the window.

The treatment of the disease that is supposedly rampant in this near-future world is ambiguous. No, the disease doesn't seem like AIDS, but it's unclear just what it is, how much of the population is afflicted by it, and whether or not it is really deadly. At times, you get the sense that the government invented the disease to spread fear among the people, but, then again, clearly some of the people in the movie are sick. It's all sort of confusing.

Cuba Gooding's character is one-dimensional. At first he's very angry and refuses to have anything to do with Moira Kelly. Then, aw shucks, he is forced to admit he really loves her. Moira Kelly's character is semi-believable. To me, however, the really interesting character is that played by Martha Plimpton, who makes the character come alive and has a very interesting face in the bargain.

Somewhere in this movie is a good idea that never manages to break free.

While the movie is interesting, this is as close to propaganda filming as I have seen this late in the century. If michael moore made dramas, this would be one.

The US is a crumbling third world country, and the local street gangs are part of the government's fascist enforcement. Can you say Nazi? If this were a blog, they would have envoked Godwyn's law and be done with it.

OK, so Cuba gets sick and has to go to a "camp" where the government will make him very comfortable while they look for a cure. But everyone knows thats not what happens. Can you say "Concentration Camp" and "AIDS"?

This movie was made to make a point about how AIDS is killing people and the government is not doing enough, but instead it comes off like the psycho nut liberal fanatic at a party that you wish you hadn't started a conversation with.

That said, it is certainly memorable, and the movie, while intentionally frustrating, is interesting enough to watch... if you can keep from rolling your eyes ever five minutes.