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Credits

With: Cuba Gooding Jr. and Moira Kelly

An ambitious, paranoid-liberal melodrama set in the near future, Daybreak presents an America overrun by fascism inspired by a nameless, AIDS-like disease. Public policy is to quarantine the infected, which has given rise to semiofficial gangs of vigilante youths who imprison or kill anyone they suspect has the disease. A resistance movement that includes our hero, played by Boyz N the Hood's Cuba Gooding Jr., tries to help the afflicted escape the clutches of these goons.

In a Romeo and Juliet twist, Gooding falls in love with the sister of one of the fascist leaders; she's played by Moira Kelly (Chaplin). Adapted and directed by Stephen Tolkin from Alan Bowne's play, Beirut, Daybreak is something of a mess -- part action flick, part romance (Gooding and Kelly are hot together), part apocalyptic fable -- but it's an engrossing mess and features alert acting from Parenthood's Martha Plimpton as Kelly's traitorous best friend.


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Posted May 07, 1993
 

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