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6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
An underrated film, 10 September 2005
8/10
Author: Robert Brockway from Canada

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.

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9 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Cuba and Moira shine, 18 January 2001
Author: zaur-2 from Nelson, NC

This is a very excellent and overlooked HBO movie. Set in the future where HIV positive people are sent to live in concentration camps and probably exterminated in the near future. Cuba and Moria Kelly are excellent as the lead characters. There's also a really hot love scene between Cuba and Moria, which is interrupted by a kid. This is a very excellent movie of what might happen in an intolerent Texas future.

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6 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Awful script ruins interesting idea, 6 November 2003
Author: mobocracy from The Basement

I recorded this because the Tivo program guide description described the movie as a "two rebels fighting a fascist government in the near future." The movie starts promisingly with a failed escape from a medical institution that leads to an execution and an eerily prescient city street scene borrowed (or stolen) from Soylent Green -- a group of people standing around watching a TV behind a barred storefront window, a menacing group of paramilitary thugs intimidating a homeless person, and a couple of girls in uniforms with the label "WorkFare" getting off work.

This should have helped establish a backstory of a bleak near future of economic collapse, government propaganda and tyrany, and, as we're told later on, rampant disease and forced quarantine.

Instead of building on all these ideas to tell what could have been at least as good as "Handmaid's Tale", the script gets lost in a ridiculous love story between Cuba Gooding Jr. and Moira Kelly which is not redeemed even by two sex scenes featuring extensive topless footage of Moira.

The love story detracts from the all-too-plausible social premise of the movie that seems quite believable now: the government is using propaganda, a paramilitary "Home Guard" of thugs and forced internment of people infected with a disease in quarantine centers that are portrayed as country club resorts, but instead are more like Soviet-era prison hospitals where the patients are sent to die.

The budget must not have allowed for much location shooting or set dressing, as the premise of an America in deep decline is offset by Kelly and Martha Plimpton getting on a bus and a number of other scenes shot in high-rise Manhattan that would make it appear that life was functioning normally, in direct conflict to the other, Soylent Green like street scenes and overcrowded apartments.

The AIDS-like disease is also treated in a conflicting manner -- it apparently was a real disease, as Cuba Gooding's band of rebels was actually trying to aide those sick with it, and Gooding made a deliberate attempt to wear a condom before having sex with Kelly -- but we're also led to believe that the sypmtpoms, communicability and perhaps even treatability of the disease wasn't what the government said it was. It would have been more effective (and productive for the storyline) if the disease had been instead a creation of the government as an excuse to put people in a prison-like quarantine where they would die by other means.

Overall, a "near-future" concept which is actually chillingly plausable in our modern times (substitute genetically engineered smallpox for the disease and terrorism detention for the quarantine...) is ruined by a bad love story and a low-budget production.

If you do suffer through this movie, don't miss future Sex and the City characters David Eigenberg ("Steve") as Kelly's brother, and Willie Garson ("Stanford Blatch") as a member of Gooding's rebel gang.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Well worth the watch, 9 October 2005
7/10
Author: Lenny Nero from United Kingdom, London

I it is strange as I read through all of the other write ups is the big split between the people who think it was good and the others who think it was not much middle ground, I often think that is the mark of a good film.

Having seen this twice now the first time with nothing to watch flicking around I catch it just as the two girls are running out of the 'testing centre' within 10 minutes I had seen the start of a good story that followed on to the end. Yes it did get a bit thin towards the end but it was a TV movie so I did not expect a $50 million block buster it works for what it was. Even so it still had that ability to show the real problems of parts of society and that if some things are not property addressed that they could easily turn out that way.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
An excellent film with well-thought out characters and plot, 5 November 1999
Author: Mark Oribello from Providence, RI, USA

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.

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1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
so wonderful, 20 February 2007
10/10
Author: Edvardov from United States

I just rented this and I can't believe how moving it is. And how great Cuba and Moira are. Cuba maybe better than in anything else except Jerry Maguire. And also Omar Epps. He makes such a great villain!!! And the guy from Sex in the City--David Eigenberg--so helpless and lost and trying to find his way. Martha Plimpton was also awesome--complicated and conflicted and sad. She and Moira---you really believed they were best friends. Also one of the best kid performances I've ever seen. The story grabbed me and carried me along and I can't believe it was only made for television, I know that this is a story that will stay with me. Also the whole way it looked, the way the city felt, made me feel like I was right there living it with the characters. Bravo to all involved!

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1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
This movie is great, 12 October 2005
10/10
Author: chronicbliss2 from United States

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.

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2 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
In my view, an excellent representative of proper, engaging sci-fi, 5 November 1998
10/10
Author: Sampo Syreeni from Lahti, Finland

Being what it is (a TV-movie), I was surprised by the excellent plot and deep characters portrayed by Daybreak. Though I'm a devoted Moira Kelly fan, I tend to view the strong side of traditional, socially critical science fiction as being the more important part in the enchantment of the film. A later movie with similar intent is Gattaca - both these handle the subject of being different in an intolerant society. But where Gattaca is cooler and more controlled, Daybreak is a bit more lightheaded and dramatic - an ounce of romance counters nicely the oozing intellectuality of the newer creation...

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0 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Day Breakdown, 14 October 2006
4/10
Author: moviemaster from sanfrancisco

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The good news...Gooding is good. That's it, nothing else. The bad news... almost everything else. Obviously this was a play/movie written about the US with the specter of AIDS in mind. In 1993, it might have been horrifying. But one of the yardsticks by which to judge works of art is durability... I can still watch Metropolis and marvel at its perception. This work makes me marvel that it was even released. So, it's Sci-Fi? When is it supposed to be happening? Looks like 1993 or earlier to me. Well, as far as I know, bush wasn't president then and all this fascist drivel was not being dished up by Clinton in 1993. It's hard to tell which is more inept, the govt. or the insurgents. The insurgents seem to have little ability to plan and the govt. couldn't catch a cold. Every time they get near the insurgents to capture them, everyone starts running around like KeyStone Kops and the "terrorists" get away. Gooding is good, but Kelly is not (although she can be.) Her lines are so sickeningly sweet, one feels he's been globbed by a honey pot every time she starts one of her love chats. Everyone else is just predictable. If this was supposed to be a projection of what might happen if no cure for AIDS was found and they started quarantining, I suppose it was worth the effort. It does depict people as having few morals except for self-preservation. That's accurate.

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4 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
This could have been such a good film, 1 October 2001
3/10
Author: Sam Ragnarsson from Neustadt-bei-Coburg, Germany

Being a big fan of Sci-fi films I expected a much better film. The storyline sounded like heroes would be saving the world in a futuristic "not-so-good" city. However, starting well with good time spend on the lead women, and making it interesting enough for you to sit and watch, it died out as it went along. It's very strange, it's like the first hour of the film is preparing you for some action, like they are building the story line up for some big scene at the end. But the film dies out and leaves you completely hanging, not knowing anything more as to what happens to the main characters, or even what they were fighting for most of the time. I recommend that people stay well away from this one, as Cuba Gooding Jr. has sooooo much more to offer.

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