VOD Review - The Day Shall Come

This was a very overlooked film in 2019. It got a brief theatrical release before being put online almost immediately. It came in the wake of The Last Black Man in San Francisco, which is a somewhat comedic and somewhat satirical look at the life of an impoverished, African-American man living in a coastal city. That film though was directed by a white man named Joe Talbot. However, Talbot's film was written by an African-American man with whom he was friends, so Talbot stood on a firmer ground when making his film. Here, the director doesn't have that same, firm ground. Director Christopher Morris made the film Four Lions (2010), which is a film about Islamic terrorists. That film was mocking those terrorists, so having an intimate connection to the subject matter wasn't needed, although Morris probably did good research to prepare himself, but having a disconnect from the subjects was not as much of a hindrance and in fact might have been warranted in that case. That same kind of disconnect isn't warranted here.

Morris is from England. The two writers on this project are also from the United Kingdom. All of them are white men. It's not to say that these guys couldn't tell the story of an African-American family and specifically an African-American man living in a coastal city, not San Francisco but instead Miami. They could and did, but Morris and his writers were disconnected in color, country and culture. At least in Four Lions, Morris was connected in country and somewhat in culture, but here, he's even more removed. It's almost as if Morris and his writers were aware of that disconnect, which is why half of this movie isn't about the African-American man but instead a white woman working for a bureaucratic, government organization. By contrast, Four Lions was mainly about the minority characters, the aforementioned Islamic men. Half of it wasn't about white people trying to arrest them. Yet, this film does do that, which only is the start of how problematic it is.

Marchánt Davis in his feature debut stars as Moses Al Shabazz. He's married and has children. He is the leader of a black liberation group based in Miami. The group is also a quasi-religious group that borrows mostly from Islam but other black military or revolutionary figures. Yet, Moses mostly preaches a nonviolent uprising. He's also pretty adamant about being nonviolent. His group is called "Star of Six" and it operates predominantly as a community farm. He doesn't have a job or proper income. This is probably because he has mental health issues, which require him to take medication. His wife has to get food that's thrown away from restaurants, so she does dumpster-diving. Moses tries to sell things from his farm, but he's no good at it.

As a result of being impoverished and desperate, Moses encounters and is susceptible to the criminal element or criminal underworld. Moses does sermons or preaches online via Facebook or some other digital platform. His sermons are very militant and revolutionary, but again not violent. Yet, the strength of his sermons and his tangential connections to criminals do get him on the radar of local FBI agents who don't care that Moses is nonviolent, the tangential or perceived militancy make the FBI agents jump to the conclusion that he could become a violent terrorist, so they attempt to set him up by tempting him into committing a crime. However, their efforts don't work, so they have to keep upping the ante, which eventually becomes a gross form of entrapment.

Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect and Up in the Air) co-stars as Kendra Glack, a FBI agent who leads the operation that is setting up Moses and trying to entrap him. Of all the FBI agents, she's probably the most reasonable or self-aware of the ridiculousness of what they're doing, but she goes along with it any way, especially because of the pressure from her bosses and the eventual snowball effect that occurs. Mostly though, it's about pride and the people in the FBI wanting to make it seem like they're stopping terrorists when really they're just being racist and jingoistic.

Articles in The Guardian newspaper and recently an article on Cleveland.com have pointed out that FBI entrapment cases have been a controversial thing. One article from 2016 even accuses the FBI of "manufacturing terrorism cases." This certainly makes this controversy ripe for criticism and satire. Unfortunately, doing so in the same way that Morris did in Four Lions doesn't feel like the right tactic. Morris worked with Armando Iannucci on HBO's Veep and it's apparent that that style of humor is also utilized here. This style would have been fine if the people at the center were comparable to the characters in Veep. One could argue that the FBI agents are those comparable characters, but the African-American characters like Moses and his family aren't. To satirize Moses as such feels like punching down and harsh in a way that shouldn't be.

It's a shame because otherwise this film could have been a comedic version of Showtime's Homeland. It's not to say though that this film doesn't have very funny performances. The supporting cast is terrific from Danielle Brooks (Orange is the New Black) who plays Moses' wife to Kayvan Novak (Four Lions and What We Do in the Shadows) who plays Reza, a shady FBI informant who profits off entrapping Muslim guys, even if they're innocent. Morris' writers even craft hilarious moments like a scene where Moses and his commune meet with supposed Nazis. He's not much of a presence but up-and-coming actor Curtiss Cook Jr. (Gook and Naz and Maalik) is great in his small role as well.

Not Rated but contains language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 28 mins.

Available on Hulu.