Daybreak

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.

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.

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.

Living in 2020 makes it hard to believe anyone would go this far to try and stop a disease. We can't even make people wear masks and stay home... But that doesn't mean it's not plausible for fear to win. It has in the past. The fact this was supposed to be in the near future doesn't exactly age well either but if you can get past that, it's a good movie. Definitely reminiscent of the times back then.

It's a nice story and kept me interested till the end. I enjoyed the ending too. The growth of all the characters. The story still being far from over. It's focus on Blue's journey as she starts a new chapter in her life. It's far from being a masterpiece of the decade but it's worth passing the time with.

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.