Monday 22 July 2013

Dead Presidents (1995)



Dead Presidents (US 1995 - 114min.)   Directed and written by Albert and Allen Hughes.

"In this daring heist, the only color that counts is green "



Crime drama starring Larenz Tate, Keith David and Chris Tucker. Despite a happy upbringing and success at school, young Anthony Curtis feels a need for action, and enlists in the army. After two tours of duty in Vietnam, he returns home to find that the Bronx has little to offer a black former GI - except a life of crime.


A fast-moving and swirling attempt to document the experience of young black men growing up in the United States of the late sixties, the effects of the Vietnam War on those that served and the social and financial pressures that ultimately lead to a seemingly inevitable return to crime.

It's a massive subject to attempt to cover in just under two hours and the Hughes brothers sacrifice in-depth sociological probing of their characters development (or lack of it) in favour of a series of impressionistic sketches from the lives of the protagonists.

Anthony (the excellent Larenz Tate) journeys from high school graduate without much of a plan to US Marine in a superbly realised guerrilla jungle war and back to his original neighbourhood where he struggles to find steady work before becoming enmeshed in the bank heist that opens and closes the film.
Along the way he meets representatives of the generational change taking place around him - the old school numbers racketeer, the newly radicalised generation of revolutionary youth (a superb turn by N'Bushe Wright), the creeping effect of hard drug use and the controlling influence that the criminal lifestyle could have on those at the bottom of the social pyramid.

The Hughes Brothers had exploded on the film world with "Menace To Society" (1993) and that film coupled with "Dead Presidents" suggested that they would, along with John Singleton and Spike Lee, become documenters of the black American experience. Sadly their career appeared to stall : the disappointing "American Pimp" followed in 1999 before they turned their attention to more mainstream film making with the interesting comic book adaptation "From Hell" (2001) starring Johnny Depp and 2010's "The Book Of Eli"

What "Dead Presidents" shows is an ambition and an abundant natural talent - it's detractors lament it's lack of depth and character study; but in attempting to encapsulate a symbolic life over a fairly lengthy time span there's little running time left for anything other than an edited highlights package which attempts to show how Anthony turns from carefree teenager into desperate gun wielding bank robber.

Three special mentions : the superb soundtrack of period appropriate soul and funk and Danny Elfman's original theme and score; the visually arresting "ghost face" make up used by the characters during the heist and a couple of surprising cameos from big name Hollywood stars (watch especially the scene where Anthony hails a Bronx cab in the early seventies segment of the film).

A bold and distinctive film visually that might have benefited from a little script editing but overall a hugely satisfying watch.

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