Review: The Day Shall Come
14th October 2019It’s nice to see the big return of director Christopher Morris finally come to fruition. A project long stuck in development, rumours spreading at a rapid pace, it was looking like I’d have to wait a lot longer to see his latest project, The Day Shall Come. Following on from the great Four Lions, Morris’ new film The Day Shall Come follows the hundreds of true stories that came from FBI operations to plant terrorist cells within America. If that story sounds unbelievable and hard-hitting, it’s no surprise that Morris is making the news explaining how The Day Shall Come is really a highlight of dirty dealings within the United States.
Comparisons to Four Lions are impossible to avoid, with the nail–biting cultural tension and social commentary certainly a similarity between the two. Unfortunately, The Day Shall Come is devoid of any charm or energy in its consistent preaching of a genuine American problem. By all means is it an important one, but it doesn’t feel quite as flourishing or well-rounded as Morris’ previous works. Morris brings us some funny enough lines, but nothing that would really highlight a serious message or something to take home and think about.
With a cast including Anna Kendrick, Denis O’Hare Marchant Davis as Moses Al Shabaz, The Day Shall Come follows a desperate cult leader looking to raise enough funds to stop his landlord foreclosing on his farm. Approached by a man willing to give him a hundred thousand dollars, the film looks to blend the desperation’s of those in need with the impact bribery has on those the American government looked to pin down.
Kendrick and O’Hare definitely receive the best lines throughout the film, one that has rapid fire moments of humour, most of which stick relatively well. Some feel elongated, struggling to hit the punchline in a comfortable amount of time. Other times the jokes are stacked up, with line after line of solid gold thrown out one after another, just to see what sticks. The problem with this approach is that the delivery is so fast that a few jokes are easily missed, and to rewatch The Day Shall Come would be a misguided venture, especially given how unfazed I was by much of the movie.
For some reason, even aside from this mundane and unoriginal grouping of performances, The Day Shall Come manages to survive on its sheer originality. In a year that has been drained with musical biopics, Marvel movies straight off of the conveyor belt and enough disastrous productions to keep anyone away from film, even the most mediocre of films is a beacon of hope. That is, in essence, what Morris has crafted here. A shining light that proclaims this year is nearly over, and not all of the films from 2019 will be dreadfully mismatched or underwhelmingly boring. Even if his film isn’t one to fill the boots of a bigger and more enjoyable idea, it’s nice to see that original screenplays are still getting greenlit.
Cataclysmically mediocre and not worthy of merit or disdain, The Day Shall Come is the definition of filler. A light hearted romp through serious and pressing issues that plague modern day America, presented to us through overblown character cliché and stereotypically Americanised productions. Bloated, somewhat boring, but it still has that awkward charm only Morris can bring to the table with a production of this calibre. The day shall come where Christopher Morris brings us a knockout film that manages to hit the pulse of political tensions, but today is not that day.