Daybreak (1993 film)

Daybreak is a 1993 HBO Production based upon the play Beirut by Alan Bowne.

Plot

The film is a dystopian science fiction thriller set in the near future in a more authoritarian America. It deals with the social persecution and criminalisation of people who are infected with a sexually transmitted infection similar to HIV. Those who test positive for the disease are forcibly placed into quarantine camps. In the quarantine camps they are tattooed with a P by the authorities to indicate their positive status and shot if they try to escape. The quarantine camps are dilapidated places where patients are left to die without care or contact with the outside world.

Moira Kelly plays Blue, a young woman who earns a living scavenging metal in the city. She goes with a friend who wants to be tested to a Helping Hand clinic. The clinic has the sinister slogan "Making your hard choices easier". Outside the clinic they are given a card warning them against getting tested there. The card demands "Why is sickness a crime? Why is hospital a prison? Why does the helping hand hold a gun?". Blue is disturbed by this warning and meets an activist in the resistance called Torch, played by Cuba Gooding, Jr.

The resistance works to prevent the quarantine of those who are positive. They arrange testing outside the official system so that they will not be quarantined. They rescue people being held by the Helping Hand clinic in order to give them medicine, care, and understanding. They distribute condoms and clean needles to help prevent the spread of the disease. This is contrasted with government advertisements for the Helping Hand clinics that threaten "The only way is not to play".

A relationship develops between Blue and Torch and it is revealed that Torch is positive. Torch is arrested because of his activism and when the police discover that he is positive they send him to quarantine. Blue sneaks into the quarantine in order to see Torch. Blue wants to be infected by Torch so that they can live together inside the quarantine camp but Torch is reluctant to infect Blue.

Cast

• Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Torch
• Moira Kelly as Blue
• Omar Epps as Hunter
• Martha Plimpton as Laurie
• Alan Bowne as Writer for Beirut
• Stephen Tolkin as Writer for screenplay
• Amir Williams as Willie
• David Eigenberg as Bucky
• John Cameron Mitchell as Lennie
• Willie Garson as Simon
• Mark Boone Jr. as quarantine guard
• Deirdre O'Connell as Mom
• Jon Seda as Payne
• Phil Parolisi as Russell
• Paul Butler as truck driver
• Alix Koromzay as woman in quarantine

References

• Daybreak at IMDb