Daybreak is an HBO Production based on Alan Bowne's acclaimed off- Broadway play Beirut.It stars Cuba Gooding,Jr and Moira Kelly.When a substantial portion of the nation's populace falls victim to a deadly plague, the tyrannical government quarantines them in camps, offering no alternative except death in this cautionary tale from director Stephen Tolkin.The film has been "opened-out" into an apocalyptic, romantic action- thriller. New York City is a fascist nightmare steeped in poverty and ridden with plague. Bands of armed officers under the rubric Operation Helping Hand roam the streets rounding up Positives, who are tattooed and quarantined in filthy hellholes. Blue, a poor but pretty young woman, stumbles onto a secret resistance group that rescue Positives to give them compassionate care. Blue falls in love with their courageous leader, Torch.It focuses on the relationship between these star-crossed lovers and the film's best moments do the same. It ever mentions AIDS by name, but it is clear that AIDS is the plague in question and the theme is the hysteria that the illness can generate. The horrible future these dramas foresaw did not come to pass. Since they were written, great medical strides have been made that have changed the face of AIDS. But fear and misinformation about the disease persist. AIDS remains a major health crisis worldwide and Daybreak could have been powerful film that deserves to be seen.Unfortunately,the film turned into a boring melodrama in the end.

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.

I watched this last night, as it was on a DVD with something else I could have survived without seeing. The first thing that came to mind was 1984. Bleak and miserable settings; people doing manual labor that you'd suspect they wouldn't be doing if they had a choice; and being urged to report on one another - all for their own good of course. And then, for some strange reason, the old Gregory Harrison TV series, Logan's Run, popped up - what they told you you'd get and what you actually got were two different things. Add just a tiny pinch of Brave New World, and WELCOME TO YOUR FUTURE.Of course, having not seen this until 2006, it all seems a bit far fetched now. When AIDS first appeared on the scene in the early 80s, far from introducing strict quarantine, there were calls for homosexuality to be legalized. And Political Correctness has now determined that illness - instead of making you a candidate for extermination - will more likely ensure that you'll never be found guilty of committing a crime. My illness made me do it! So a conceivable future? NOT IN MY LIFETIME.But love still was able to bloom, in this unlikely nightmare world, between a young freedom fighter and a new recruit to the cause. Perhaps the total abandon with which Blue conducted her sex life is indicative of how the disease got to be so rampant in the first place? Be warned, kiddies! Get it on before you get it off. Add a betrayal and then assistance from an unexpected source......Well at least it was something to do while I was waiting for my cat to come home.

I thought this movie was great, and I think it should still be shown to teens today. The virus, an obvious AIDS parallel, striking paranoia and fear into the populace, and the reluctance of government to educate people on prevention, are themes I remember seeing in the real world when AIDS first came out. I also remember the suggestions of quarantines and somehow marking the infected as dangerous. The romantic aspect of the film was a bit off-subject, but then most subplots are, and I liked how Moira Kelly's character brought about the opportunity to explain details that otherwise might have been assumed "obvious" by characters, thus making the explanations seem forced and unnatural. I wish I owned this DVD, especially since actors tend to do better work before reaching star-status, and this is certainly an example of that.