Dead Presidents with Larenz Tate: DVD Cover

    Dead Presidents Director: Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes Cast: Larenz Tate, Keith David, Chris Tucker, N'Bushe Wright

    DVD - Wide Screen / Dolby 5.1 / Stereo Learn more

    BUY THIS ITEM

    • $14.99 Online price
      $13.49 Member price
      Join Now
      • skip to cart
    • Add To List uiAction=GetAllLists&page=List&pageType=list&ean=717951000392&productCode=DV&maxCount=100&threshold=3

    GET FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS OF $25 OR MORE

    DELIVERY & GIFT DETAILS:

    Usually ships within 24 hours

    Delivery Time and Shipping Rates

    Eligible for gift wrap & gift message.

    Enter a zip code

    • DVD Release Date: 05/20/1998
    • Original Release: 1995
    • Rating: Rated R
    • Sales Rank: 26,625

    Viewer Rating: (3 ratings)

    See All Detailed Ratings

     
    • Overview
    • Editorial Reviews
    • Scenes
    • Customer Reviews
    • Cast & Crew
    • Full Product Details

    Features

    French-language track; Spanish subtitles; Chapter search

    Full Product Details

    Scene Index

    Side #1 --
    0. Chapter Selection
    1. Program Start [:33]
    2. Graduation Plans [3:26]
    3. A Run with Kirby [3:26]
    4. Different Path [:02]
    5. Juanita and Anthony [:30]
    6. Men at War [:30]
    7. Luck Gone [3:10]
    8. A Lethal Favor [:35]
    9. Homeward Bound [:35]
    10. Bad Habits [4:02]
    11. Family Man [2:38]
    12. The Big Payback [3:33]
    13. A Friend of the Family [1:48]
    14. Domestic Discord [:20]
    15. The Heist [:20]
    16. Money to Burn [4:06]
    17. Skip's End [5:46]
    18. Caught [:04]
    19. Sentence Passed [:04]
    20. End Credits [6:46]

    Scene Index

    Editorial Reviews

    Albert Hughes and his brother Allen Hughes followed their striking debut Menace II Society with this ambitious look at the social and political lives of the African-American community in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Anthony Curtis (Larenz Tate) is a young man coming of age in the Bronx in 1968. Working two part-time jobs -- one as a milkman's helper and another for local numbers runner Kirby (Keith David) -- Anthony is torn between doing the right thing and trying to get by in a environment that offers few opportunities to young black men. After graduating from high school, Anthony decides to join the Marines, news that is not well-received by his parents, who want him to go to college, or his girlfriend Juanita (Rose Jackson), with whom Anthony recently lost his virginity. After serving a horrific tour of duty in Viet Nam with his friends Skip (Chris Tucker) and Jose (Freddy Rodriguez), Anthony finds himself back home in 1973, where Juanita has been raising the child he fathered before he shipped out, drugs and crime have crippled his community, and honest job prospects are practically nil. Eventually, Anthony falls in with Kirby, Skip, and Jose, who have teamed with Juanita's sister Delilah (N'Bushe Wright), a Black Power activist, and Cleon (Bokeem Woodbine), in a scheme to rob an armored truck taking worn greenbacks ("dead presidents") to a mint to be destroyed. Martin Sheen and Seymour Cassel appear unbilled in small roles. Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

    Customer Reviews

    Dead Presidentsby Anonymous

    Reader Rating:
    See Detailed Ratings

    September 07, 2006: The Hughes brothers certainly had the right idea in mind making this a cool heist, and I give them credit for trying, but they bite off more than they can chew. Dead Presidents is a really good film. Most people think this movie is all about robbing a bank but it really isn't even though it comes at the end. The most obvious problem is the film tries to be too many things at once. It starts as a ghetto drama-then it's a war movie-then it ends as a crime thriller! (More than a bit remiscent of Kubrick's "The Killing.") This could have worked with the proper care, but DP suffers from trying to cram too much story in just under two hours. An extra twenty minutes would properly flesh out the plot. The film opens in the late sixties as we meet Anthony (Larenz Tate), Anthony's girl Juanita (Rose Jackson), his friend Skip (Chris Tucker-as bug-eyed as ever) and boss Kirby (Keith David). We follow Anthony through his first experiences with sex, violence, and family resistance. Anthony wants to join the Marines and through a rather clever edit, we are plunged into the Vietnam War head first. The Hughes Bros. handle this material well, although it gets a bit busy with all the Vietnam-isms: drug use, severed heads, mercy killings, Agent Orange, air strikes, etc. The audience discovers that before the war Anthony got Juanita pregnant, and that he has a baby girl "back in the world." It is a lot of material to cover in the brief period of time, and we only get a brief glimpse of what is was like to be a black soldier in country. We jump back to the "world", where we witness the domestic turmoil the war has brought upon Anthony and Juanita. Another pitfall is the Juanita character, who is so abrasive that we feel no sympathy towards her. The scene where Anthony assaults her is problematic I mean what did she expect waging the verbal attack that she does on an alcoholic Vietnam Vet? The confrontation with Cutty (Clifton Powell), Juantia's sugar daddy, is contrived and goes on far too long. Broke and alone, Anthony, in his moral confusion, turns to the film's equivalent of the Black Panther Party for support... This is where ‘Dead Presidents’ abandons the drama for the above mentioned heist aspects. Ignoring the pragmatic problems with the robbery (i.e. face paint instead of masks), it is a rather poor way to resolve a film where so much time has been expended creating complex characters. One does not get the sense that Anthony is desperate enough to do something that goes so much against his character. The other members of the heist have not been properly set up to take part in it either. It seems tacked on, almost an afterthought to the plot proper. Anyway the heist does not go as planned everything leading to the final shot of ‘Dead Presidents’ seems anticlimactic, leaving many questions unanswered. One of the major flaws of the film is the lead performance by Larenz Tate he is a good actor, but does not seem dynamic enough to bring Anthony through a narrative arc that gets lost in the clouds. The editing leaves scenes unfinished and cold. The story: If the Hughes Bros. had focused on one or two aspects of the plot, we would have been presented with a more thoughtful and detailed story. I'll give them credit for being ambitious though, but experienced film makers also know what to cut from a film when everything seems like a good idea. But that is a skill that comes with time.

    Dead Presidentsby Anonymous

    Reader Rating:
    See Detailed Ratings

    December 19, 2002: I started watching withing the first 20 mins, and i was instantly hooked on it, it was a good movie, and a nice little twist at the end.... a must see for everyone


    More Customer Reviews