Powerful

How sad is this?

best movie i've ever seen.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Albert and Allen Hughes direct, produce and co-write (with Michael Henry Brown) this tale about Anthony Curtis (Larenz Tate), a South Bronx boy who goes off to fight in Vietnam, to then return after his tours of duty to find things just aren't the same anymore. The follow up to their incendiary debut, Menace II Society, the Hughes brothers deliver another in your face picture that is quite frankly on a perpetual downer. This is no bad thing, though, as long as you are not looking to be cheered up.That's Uncle Sam for you! Mean Green.The pic very much harks back to the glory days of film noir in the 40s and 50s, where some talented film makers began to tell stories of returning war veterans finding what they left behind is now alien to them - with some characters, as is the case here - deeply scarred by their experiences. Add in some gangster elements and the coup de grâce that is the scintillating heist, and clearly the brothers have seen many an old classic film. That the narrative is tried and tested stops the piece hitting greater heights, this in spite of some super acting (especially Tate and the always value for money Keith David) and the hard hitting violence that pierces the senses. Predictable yet potent, and certainly memorable, it's well worth a look for the tough of mind and the classic era film of heart. 7/10

I think my disappointment for this film is based partially on the hype of a well known UK film journalist who talked of this as a 'must see movie.' So expectations were high but when the credits rolled on at the end I wondered what on earth was so special about the film.The plot was predictable and with so many short scenes there was little time for atmosphere which left the funk and soul heavy sound track to work overtime. I would align this film with Forest Gump in its attempts to show a young man growing up. Weaving adolescence, romance, violence and adventure into the story. This is the most slight reference since the two films qualities are markedly different.Not a single character in Dead Presidents incites any reaction from the audience. The scripts plausibility is questionable in many places, chasms of time are treated as though they have been emotionally filled in. Characters act out their two dimensional emotions towards these situations to move seamlessly onwards.If you feel sympathy for the lead character to begin with once it is revealed he comes from a loving supportive family this is quashed. I don't think you can identify with a character who throws away so much due to arrogance and selfish pride. So if this is the case what where the directors trying to say about this mans life? Nothing in the film allowed us to be enlightened.I wouldn't recommend this film but then I like films which have a depth and are written in a more considered way.

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.

This is more than just a great genre flick, but a film that captures the essence, for lack of a better term, of living and growing up in Bronx during 60's and the buildup to the Vietnam war. All of the actors played their parts very well and found Chris Tucker's character a morbid yet apt comic relief to a very serious topic, which in turn was captured in Bokeem Woodbine's part and who played "Cleon" - The look on the faces of those in the unit when they were trying to get him to get rid of the head of the dead enemy soldier was uncompromisingly gripping.Another great performance was had by Keith David, of Platoon fame who played the worldly and elder part to-a-T. And not to mention Larenz Tate, whose boyishly-looking features cleanly established the groundwork in the development of the story. And although a lot of profanity was employed in this movie, it does capture the gravity of what the story hoped to convey.The movie is so vivid and compelling, I believe that this account was based on reality, than that of imagination or fiction. Kudos to the Hughes bros. who've once again given us yet another thought provoking glimpse of life from another perspective.Wishful thinking: Beginning with the lives of the principal actors when they first met as children.Memorable movie quote: "Fuck you, man. It stinks like a sack full of assholes!"