Dead Presidents |  | Directors: Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes
Actors: Larenz Tate, Keith David, Chris Tucker, Freddy Rodríguez, Rose Jackson
Studio: Walt Disney Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.99
Buy New: $6.69
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Rating:  63 reviews
Sales Rank: 3627
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: NC-17
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 119 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: DISD14258D
ISBN: 1558908390
UPC: 071795100039
EAN: 9781558908390
ASIN: 1558908390
Theatrical Release Date: October 4, 1995
Release Date: May 20, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
ANTHONY CURTIS DECIDES TO ENLIST IN THE MARINE CORPS. HIS BUDDIES SKIP AND JOSE SOON JOIN HIM. ANTHONY RETURNS HOME TO FIND HIS NEIGHBORHOOD IN TURMOIL AND HIS PROSPECTS FOR EMPLOYMENT BLEAK. HE TEAMS WITH OF COUPLE OF HIS FELLOW VETERANS TO PLAN AN ARMORED CAR HEIST.
Amazon.com
Twin brother codirectors Albert and Alan Hughes planned their first film, the 1991 ghetto crime drama Menace II Society as a response to John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood, which they considered wimpy and moralistic. They set their sights on The Deer Hunter in this ambitious follow-up, and they just about pull it off. Larenz Tate (from Why Do Fools Fall in Love) plays Anthony Curtis, an open-hearted African American teenager who gets shipped out to Vietnam with several of his pals, witnesses unspeakable horrors, and then struggles to readjust to civilian life. The evolving textures of life in a declining inner-city neighborhood over a period of a decade are seamlessly evoked, and there's enough nuanced character development and personal interaction for a seven-hour miniseries. Still in their early 20s, the Hughes brothers are already poised and masterful moviemakers; they cover an enormous amount of historical and emotional ground, and every twist and turn is crystal clear. They betray their inexperience only at the very end, in an elaborately staged heist sequence that, while stunningly executed, feels a bit desperate, as if they were reaching blindly for a big payoff. Chris Tucker (Rush Hour) has a startling supporting role as a kid who becomes junkie during the war, and never quite recovers. --David Chute
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 63
It hits you like a sledgehammer to the jaw. February 20, 2010
Tristan (Kansas, USA)
Dead Presidents details the traumatic life of a young New York Vietnam war veteran. Anthony(Larenz Tate) is a high school student in the 60s with a girlfriend, Juanita(Rose Jackson) and a decent job at the billiard hall. In 1971, he and his friends Skip(Chris Tucker) and Jose(Freddy Rodriguez) decide to join the army and go fight in the Vietnam war. They all end up completely traumatized by their horrific experiences. When Anthony returns in 1973, his girlfriend has had his child. He finds tremendous difficulty adjusting to life after his time in combat. His home situation is damaged beyond repair. His nightmares keep him from sleeping. He is unable to afford to live and his girlfriend resorts to sleeping around in order to pay the bills and pay for food. Eventually, Anthony finds that his friends are not shaping up well either. Skip has become a heroin junkie from taking drugs in the war. Jose is a crippled pyromaniac. He also crosses paths with Juanita's sister Delilah who has had a crush on Anthony since high school. Anthony, Delilah, Skip, Jose, and a couple other people he befriended during the war eventually devise an elaborate plan to rob an armored car filled with money designated to go to the Federal Reserve Bank. Their lives get more horrific.
Dead Presidents is my favorite film by the Hughes Brothers and one of my favorite films of the 90s. It is a brutally realistic, moving, ambitious, and absorbing piece about war psychosis, desperation, and coming-of-age. This film doesn't create a world so much as it completely represents life and the feelings of growing up in a world where you know so many people. Dead Presidents is a film that does too many things right. The film is only two hours, and yet it has enough plot and character development to fill a novel. It will feel much longer than two hours, but that's not a bad thing. It only feels that way because it manages to touch on a lot of different things. The early scenes in the film take place when the character is in high school, and those scenes have so much honesty and life to them that it's incredible. Characters pass by the main character and he only vaguely knows them, but he knows them. Anthony has sex with his girlfriend Juanita in one scene, and the sex scene is handled with incredible realism. The Hughes brothers capture the awkward and nervous feelings and situations of sex without coming off uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable for the characters, no question, but not so much for the audience. The film shows the horrendous situations of war. Characters go completely insane and we witness the entire process. We see the young soldiers grow obsessed with death. These are scary people, but their insanity makes sense. We see characters get shot, blown up, and have their bones broken. All have extremely gory results with torrents of blood spray, and yet it never once seems cartoonish or comic, and instead it's very shocking.
When Anthony returns from war, the horror we felt during the war scenes never goes away. The environment and the people around him feel explosive and unpredictable. Juanita is just as scary as the soldiers faces during the combat scenes. The nightmares that Anthony has are just about the most horrible nightmares anyone could ever have. We see severed heads, arms, legs, guts, bowels, broken bones, and geysers of blood shoot all over the face of Anthony. It's like Jacob's Ladder all over again. I get chills just thinking about those scenes. Then we see characters show up that appeared earlier in the film suddenly show up again after disappearing from the middle portion of the film. It is so true-to-life. The aspects of the thought of seeing people and then never seeing them and then seeing them years later is pitch-perfect here. The film manages to move so well with these details by having each scene that follows the next be so directly crucial to the entire film that we as the audience are really able to get into Anthony's world. The final act of the film, I will not reveal. I will only say that it is beautifully ironic and surprising in the direction it goes in. Don't expect the film to play fair.
The film has a couple minor problems. The problems I have mostly have to do with the war scenes. The scenes work due to the actors and the characters they portray. The characters create the environment. The actual atmosphere of the scene is not conveyed at all through the surroundings of the characters, however, and the scenes set in the Vietnamese towns and woods are the weakest parts of the film because they feel far too contained. It felt overly claustrophobic to the point where it drew a little more attention to itself then it needed to. The surrounding environment came off lowly. My second minor gripe with the film has to do with the lack of character development for Juanita's sister Delilah. She's the only character that doesn't get enough screen time, and I found her character's actions to come off a bit excessive and a little too surprising in it's sudden leap of logic that it bugged me. Most people, when they watch the film, likely won't notice, but for me I'm anal about things like that. These two issues aside, however, the film does far too many things right to let these things bring it down.
Still, the film is tremendous. Dead Presidents has some terrific performances. I despise the acting of Chris Tucker, but here he does a perfect job and manages to do a lot with the character. I actually could understand his emotional gut reaction to the war. He conveys a lot in those scenes through his character and I was very impressed. Larenz Tate, Keith David, Bokeem Woodbine, and Freddy Rodriguez all do equally impressive jobs. The one performance I was the most blown away by, however, was Clifton Powell. He only has a handful of scenes in the film, but his short amount screen time is absolutely incredible. His character gets just the right amount development, and Powell manages to convey so much in brief, subtle, and short emotions. It's an incredible performance of a nasty character that I couldn't help but appreciate all too much. The soundtrack featuring music by Marvin Gaye and Danny Elfman is outstanding and easily ranks among one of the best soundtracks to a war film I've seen. The look of the film is dark, gritty, and alive. The film is full of so much life and so much realism and so much darkness, and I highly recommend Dead Presidents to anyone and everyone, whether they are a fan of Urban Drama, War films, Period Pieces, or if they just want to see a good story told. This is a great film, and the Hughes Brothers have crafted their masterpiece. Dead Presidents aims for the gut, and that's more than I can say for most war films.
Dead Presidents January 24, 2010
Arnita D. Brown (USA)
Anthony Curtis is a bright 18 year old from the Bronx who, in 1968, is stepping into manhood. Choosing not to immediately enroll in college, Anthony decides to leave his mentor Kirby, girlfriend Juanita Benson and her sister Delilah, to enlist in the Marine Corps. His buddy Skip and friend Jose soon join him. It is 1972 when Anthony returns to his neighborhood, only to discover that he is not treated as a hero. Though for a while he manages a part-time job in a butcher's shop, Anthony, with his girlfriend Juanita, who bore his daughter shortly after he enlisted, is living in an infested South Bronx apartment, barely making ends meet. Afforded little respect, and eventually unemployed and desperate, Anthony feels he has no alternative but to take part in a scheme to obtain some "dead presidents" a slang term for cash. He believes that one well executed score will secure a chance at a better life for himself, for his daughter and for the people of his community. This is well-crafted and well-made movie. Sit back and be prepared to watch a good moment in filmaking.
 " I don't think I want any of this dirty money." January 21, 2010
G. H. D. lll (Plainfield, NJ)
Not just one of the best movies but also Dead Presidents has the one of the best soundtracks. I love this money very much and there was a theme to this movie and that is ADJUSTMENT. Anthony had to adjust to the changes in has city after coming home from the amry, he had to adjust to his daughter and adjust to lossing his job. Skip adjust to the army by doing drugs to claim his mind and adjust to keep his life in order. Jose had to adjust to all his kids and having to adjust life after the army. They all had to adjust their plan at the end of the movie but it ended up bad for all three friends.
#1 movie October 22, 2009
Natasha L. Ogren (Sarasota, Fl)
this was purchased for my son who loves this movie and much time searching for this product at several locations online and in stores I couldn't have found a better deal or a better seller to purchase this from and most important it made my son happy.
3 stars out of 4 December 18, 2008
One-Line Film Reviews (Easton, MD)
The Bottom Line:
Though the plot doesn't always work, especially around the caper scenes, Dead Presidents is an effective and worthy look at what happens when men come back from war into a society that doesn't know quite what to do with them.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 63
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