The Day Shall Come Review

Job interviews and first dates.

They’re the only two things I’ve ever been able to show up on time for, much to the disappointment of everyone else in my life.

Not that it takes me long to start disappointing future employers or dates.

Unfortunately for me, my pathological aversion to being on time for anything has finally backfired – because I managed to miss an introduction by the brilliant Chris Morris for his equally brilliant new film, The Day Shall Come.

Not unlike another of Morris’ co-creations, Moses is a ‘preacher-man’ in downtown Chicago – though he’s far more keen on this role than Dan Ashcroft ever was.

An eternally optimistic chap who believes he’s on a holy mission to deliver his people from evil, Moses has his fair share of odd beliefs.

He believes he can talk to ducks, or at least that they talk to him – most of the time it’s Satan coming through the quacks, but sometimes God gets hold of the mic for a soundbite or two.

Our accidental preacher-man also believes he has the power to summon the dinosaurs – who certainly aren’t wholly extinct – and at the sound of a hand held klaxon the remaining prehistoric reptiles will take up arms against anyone who opposes Moses’ and his army of followers.

Which numbered four at the last head count.

Then there’s Moses’ strangest belief, for an american at least – he doesn’t believe in guns.

Of course, Moses’ non-violent beliefs have nothing to do with the divine power he believes resides in him, and that he can rain God’s wrath down on the world.

Moses also believes he looks good on a horse.

Most of all though, our preacher-man believes in his family – his wife Venus and daughter Rosa – and providing them with a better life, while following his own spiritual journey.

Alas, spiritual journeys don’t tend to impress landlords much… desperate for money before he and his family are evicted, our accidental villain goes looking for dollars in all the wrong ways.

At the same time, Chicago’s FBI are on the hunt for the next Osama bin Laden… even if he doesn’t exist.

In this post 9/11 landscape, america’s law enforcement authorities have realised that the best way to further their own careers is to bust a high profile terrorist organisation – and they don’t care who they have to entrap and what evidence they have to plant to make this happen.

Trapped in a circle of his own poor choices, the day is coming when Moses’ will have to choose between continuing to believe in his own delusions – and the consequences this will bring – or submitting to the accepted delusions of ‘normal’ society.

Based on a collection of true stories, predominantly the exploits of a small religious group of americans known as the Liberty City Seven, Morris’ The Day Shall Come is a ferociously funny reminder that when it comes to the impossibly implausible, reality will always be able to trump fiction.

Jokes come at you faster than you can keep up with but, as with any Morris production, underneath this there’s a more serious message about what’s actually happening in our society today.

And no country illustrates the localised insanity of our world better than the good ol’ us of a.

Having long since turned their incarceration system into a rigged money making scheme, Morris’ The Day Shall Come holds up a mirror to the natural endgame of this process – where law authorities are financially rewarded for framing their own citizens as terrorists.

Newcomer Marchant Davis leads a largely unheralded cast as Moses, portraying his accidental villain with an honesty and naïveté that makes you root for his cause, though I’m not entirely sure what this is.

Anna Kendrick and Kayvan Novak are the most familiar faces as an FBI agent and police informer respectively, but The Day Shall Come isn’t about famous faces or anything that superficial.

It’s about laughing at people who think they can summon dinosaurs with a klaxon.

Or how capitalism is turning our world into a giant prison, to enrich the wealthy and incarcerate those who aren’t.

It’s definitely one or the other… I just hope people realise this before it’s too late.

Because if there’s one thing I know about, it’s being late.

Jonathan Campbell

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October 2019
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