That was an excellent one.

Am I Missing Something?

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Please spare me this cliché: the tragedies of a shell-shocked veteran who comes back to his inner city neighborhood and has trouble finding work, his disillusion with the American dream, and how joining the military was the worst decision he ever made. That I could handle, (because I've seen it a million times), but all that nonsense at the end about "how dare you lock me up, after all I did for this country", spoken by a cop-killer? The Black Panthers are portrayed as strong and justified, when really they were a bunch of jabbering radicals who couldn't grow out of their teenage rebellion. The main character was not screwed by "the man" or "the system", he was just psychotic. A lot of men came back from Vietnam and many were troubled, but most did not hit their wives or robbed armored cars.

Dead Presidents hammers home its point in its final scene, a quite brilliant and excruciating in its execution scene in the sense we may want these characters to get away with what they're doing. The scene is a heist, created between a handful of people who have come to know each other through the years and we have come to understand their predicaments. The finale sums up the sad, sad desperation some of the characters have had to resort to given their life and what has happened to them and captures how hard the times get when they get hard in the first place.Dead Presidents is a crime drama; a social commentary and a war film all wrapped up in one. But this genre hybridity does not work against the film as much as it does compliment the epic feeling that we get when we recognise these characters have covered quite a fair distance. The film is Boyz in the Hood; Taxi Driver; Platoon and finishes it all off with a shoot out alá shortly after the robbery in Michael Mann's 1995 film 'Heat'. The finale stands out due to its jarring slow motion and attention to detail in how they have to go about their plan in brutal, violent, realistic detail – each person is positioned and attacks a victim with a certain weapon in a certain way and focuses on a certain part of the victim. The shootout stands out due to its inclusion in what has been, so far, a film that avoids massive shoot outs and lashings of violence in a steady and careful study of an African-America man in a crisis.The study behind Dead Presidents is intriguing and it's a study of maturity and coming to terms with responsibility. The film has its characters eventually resort to particularly desperate measures in order to merely live but does a good job in not glamorising these means. The primary focus here is the character of Anthony Curtis (Tate), a young African-American in the late sixties hanging around with his other young friends Jose (Rodríguez) and Skip (Tucker) all of whom are about to finish their education and hopefully enter some sort of employment. The setting up of the film is unspectacular but deliberately so; the kids hang out, get high and attend parties. But it is two things that click lead Anthony into his coming of age tale; they are the impregnation of Juanita (Jackson) and the volunteering to go to Vietnam to fight the cause for America in the war.These two events will shape the character upon his arrival back to The States and it's through the pathetic, immature activities that occur at the very beginning that we will get a feel for how far Anthony has come along as a human being when the going really gets tough later on before, as I said, desperation kicks in. These tough times revolve around balancing a family that he has created as well as dealing with his Vietnam experiences in which he witnessed all the atrocities you'd associate with the war.The film's opening third is teasing just as it is entertaining. It threatens to head down a route of crime complete with African-American gangsters hanging out in pool halls, taking rides with one another and getting into scraps; be it with one another over a hustle or Kirby (David), perhaps the fiercest criminal of this opening third, battering someone of a third party nature with his prosthetic leg because they owe him money. But the film never becomes stonewall in its genre and doesn't resort to clichés. It presents Anthony with a series of choices at a delicate time in his life but they are little choices such as 'Does he take the potentially ominous ride with Kirby into the unknown?' as Kirby goes to settle a score and how does he react to first seeing a gun and the potential danger that could spawn.These are choices and scenarios that will prepare Anthony for larger, more important decisions. The scenes and scenarios are nothing we haven't seen before in the respective genre but they're still required for Anthony's maturing process. Once in the military, the film again threatens to break into genre and Anthony is faced once again with choices to do with whether he excepts the Euthanasia plea from a dying soldier – guns and death and general darkness remain in his life and are the subject of a lot of his life experiences. But it's when Anthony returns to New York that a study kicks in. As a character, he has matured through experience and cannot seem to get on with his girlfriend Juanita who's now a mother after his tours of duty. The film feeds off Vietnam as a war which disables its lone individual from re-fitting into society in the snug, immature manner in which he could prior to the event.Dead Presidents contains a fair number of good scenes and its reference to Taxi Driver as a study of America more observant and concerned with what's going on in a small, Asian country many miles away when home and its own people are in an equally nasty mess (New York, yet again) is interesting. Anthony's struggles with employment and family life as well as the pimp that helps out with money and just wants to be friends acts as a highlight that he cannot even get re-acquainted all too easily, no matter how criminally minded the person is and no matter how much they might have had in common had they met prior one of them going off and fighting for one's country.

*** out of ****The directors of MENACE 2 SOCIETY teamed up again for this 1995 hit, DEAD PRESIDENTS. It is the story of a young man who gets involved in too many complicated things and it all goes way over his head. It is a brutal, effective, and very intense film that I can recommend if you think you can handle it.The story is basically this. During the 1960s a young adult named Anthony can't take anymore school, so he drops out and works petty crimes at the billiard hall with the owner who has no legs. When he finally gets tired of that lifestyle, he decides to enlist in the army. Since the Vietnam war going on, he goes in and becomes mentally unstable due to the atrocities. When he gets back home, his girlfriend has had his child and he tries to support her and his daughter. Unfortunately, the food place with the part time job that he had been contending to has gone bankrupt, leaving him with no job, no money, no food, and no choices. His desperate search descends into a downward spiral of war flashbacks and his overall loss on morality.This has been billed as an action movie for some odd reason. I mean, sure, there are action scenes in it, but not the kind that action movie fans would enjoy. The action scenes in this are quite realistic and unpleasant. The violence is pretty ugly. The scenes that take place between Anthony and his girlfriend, Juanita, are extremely creepy and quite believable. When he yells at her when she nags him, the viewer feels like they really hate each other.The most interesting aspect about this film is the character played by, believe it or not, Chris Tucker as the childhood friend whose life ends up being worse off then Anthony's. He becomes addicted to heroin, has flashbacks almost all the time, and is about ready to self destruct. Chris Tucker takes a surprisingly serious and very believable turn as this tortured character. It's quite neat to see a man who is known for normally being a funny and annoying actor take such an extreme role. He does a fine job.The film's war sequences are super gruesome, but it makes sense for them to be considering the main character and his dilemma. The violence he sees in the war is not at all what he is used to and the viewer feels this too. When it occurs, it is usually surprisingly realistic and over the top. Since it feels appropriate for the story, it's unlikely that the film would surprise you with such gritty realism outside of the war, but you'd be wrong. Somehow, the filmmakers are able to have the scenes that take place out of the war to be just as harrowing as the war scenes. I don't know how they did it.The underlying message of the film is that the Vietnam war veterans deserved way better than what they got when they returned home. The government did them no favors and granted them no opportunities. It's sad, especially since people like Anthony are poor and need government support to just be able to live. It doesn't matter if they dropped out of school or if they didn't join the army for the right reasons. They are still human beings, and no human being should live their lives regretting something they were involved in that left such a dark mark on the history of America.Rated R for strong graphic violence, language, a sex scene and some drug use.

The Hughes Brothers film Dead Presidents exists as one the most (arguably) realistic human dramas ever made. Many people refer to this as a "blaxpoitation film", but this only how the movie is portrayed. I have seen this film many times (first as a 9-year old, if you can imagine that) and it still remains one of my favourites. I have read other user comments on this film and it seems that the problem most viewers have with it is the uneven plot. So for the person reading this who has not seen this film, please read the following:Dead Presidents is not a concept film in the obvious sense. I won't explain the plot and story (everyone else seems to have their own ideas) but this film does give many messages. Other reviewers claim this tries to be a war movie or a heist movie or a love story all at once. If anything, call this a "culture" movie. Yes, this film does display the worst possible scenarios in a person's life, but this is not to say that life isn't like this for many people. A few things to remember when watching this film: (1)Do not watch this film if you don't enjoy films that portray something less than positivity for your viewing pleasure. People who prefer "soft" films that show kindness, warmth, love, etc. will ineviably be in a rut by the film's end.If this film leaves you in a state of angst by the end, it's just because that's what the film tries for, so don't trip! (2) There are racial undertones in this movie!!! This is not to say that a white person can't enjoy this film, but be prepared. I viewed this with a friend (who is white) and he was angry as hell by the end of film, making comments like, "Life's not really like that!" (3) The violence portrayed in this film is (over-the-top) quite extreme, but this is necessary for the story. Everyone has already pointed out all the most gruesome scenes in previous reviews, so if you've read previous reviews, you know what to look forward to. Don't expect any restraint in the depictions of the darker side of mankind. (4) Trying to guess the plot before viewing is completely pointless. One of the best ideas behind this film is it's unpredictability. Sure, earlier scenes might foreshadow something later, but if you think you have it figured out, you'll most likely be disappointed.The acting in this film is incredible. No one gives an even mediocre performance (this due impart to the cast: What would you expect from Larenz Tate in one of his best performances, Chris Tucker in a serious roll, and even a young Terrence Howard?) A lot of the film's best acting comes not from the dialogue (which isn't anything extraordinary), but from the voice tones and expressions. Look at Chris Tucker's eyes as the film spins out toward the end, or Keith David's rocky voice in his portrayal as the old man Kirby. *The scene where Tucker kills the cop in the heist is one of the most realistic scenes I've ever seen in a movie. Also, this is one of the most brilliantly shot films I've ever seen. From the war scenes in 'Nam to the borough of the Bronx in the 70's, settings and cinematography, as well as the film's soundtrack are all on point, more so than many of today's disappointing films. Yes, the Hughes Brothers may pay homage to other directors, particularly in the war scenes, but any one who says they are "biting" earlier styles is definitely a critic (and nothing more). This film's pacing is hardly slow, it just doesn't move like a mindless action flick. It seeks to show you not just the struggle of the black male (as many people drew this from it), but the struggles of anyone put in circumstances beyond their control. (I'm not agreeing the films final sequences, just pointing out the idea.) Life is not simplistic or happy for these characters, but rather like a hustle to come upon something better. I have dealt with these emotions myself, so I can appreciate what the Hughes Brothers are portraying, and will admit a slight bias to the film. If you have seen Menace II Society, then you have an idea of what to expect. Overall, Dead Presidents attempts to display what gives rise to blues music: the trials of people, and the choices and consequences of human action. Watch the film, draw a conclusion, but don't assume anything.*****Oh, and for those of you who couldn't seem to figure out the film's title: these are what are on U.S. currency (dollar bills), aka M-O-N-E-Y, which is what the character's are trying to O-B-T-A-I-N!