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Dead Presidents

Dead Presidents

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $11.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen.
Review: Simply horrendous. A cheesy, cliched compilation of poorly told stories. The individual bios of the characters are excruciatingly boring. This awful screenplay ends with a long-awaited (and very disappointing) action scene climax (depicted in cover photo). Don't be fooled by the cover. This movie is not about gun fights, action sequences, plot, dialogue, or anything else. Needless to say, the long painful wait was not worth it. This movie absolutely stinks. Consider yourself warned.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Excellent Movie
Review: This is a GREAT movie, and BLAH to anyone who says otherwise. The Hughes brothers do a wonderful job of depicting the African-American struggle in the 60s and 70s.4STARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome!!Can't put it any better than that.
Review: Loved the fact the most of the movie is about vietnam, overall it's awesome, Larenz Tate is great.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: I wanted to like this movie...
Review: mostly because I loved the soundtrack (volumes 1 and 2), but maybe the greatness of the soundtrack made me expect too much from this movie. Plus the soundtrack evoked some wonderful imagery that just wasn't in the movie at all. When the storyline veered over and became a cliche war movie, that's when the movie lost me. It was 1/3 war movie--I think all or nothing is key. It's the same as what the critics said--this movie tries to do too many things at once. CHaracter development was sacrificed.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent!
Review: If your taste leans towards action, drama, intensity, and great soundtracks. this movie won't disappoint you.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Do not waste your time!
Review: This is a waste of time and money to try and sit through this pitiful excuse for a movie unless you like a never ending stream of variations on how to use the f--- word. Also, some real good variations on MF word. Take those two words out of the script and you are left with very little dialog. It might have been a good movie to show a youngster how not to live his life but the constant use of profanity nixes that option out. END

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: DVD: Dead Presidents
Review: As a white guy, I know very little about the plight of the African American. However, after watching Dead Presidents, I certainly know more than my self-involved, ignorant past lead me to believe. Things were actually pretty hard for them, especially when it came to that little skirmish in a rat's nest of a country called Vietnam. They were the first ones to go to the front lines for our glorious country, and many died defending everything non-Commie that we believe in. The DVD release of this excellent film by the Hughes Brothers is pretty good. The 2.35:1 non-anamorphic video transfer is first-rate, with wonderful contrast and well-saturated colors. The shadow detail is also of reference quality. It's just a pity that Buena Vista doesn't believe in offering their films on DVD with an anamorphic transfer, thus denying the user the ability to take full advantage of the widescreen picture benefits of DVD. The 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack is also very good, with extremely deep bass and quite an exciting soundtrack. The music on the soundtrack sounds great, and the dialogue from the center speaker also sounds natural and human. As far as the surround channels go, the use of the discrete nature of 5.1 Dolby Digital is pretty widespread, making excellent use of the sonic 360-degree soundstage. Especially notable are the bank heist scenes as well as the 'Nam scenes where there is enemy fire. Unfortunately, there are no real extras to speak of on this disc, unless you happen to have voted against Proposition 227 and actually need Spanish subtitles in order to understand this film. Buena Vista isn't big on extras, but as virtually all other studios are giving up the goods on DVD (like trailers, cast/crew bios, production notes), so should Buena Vista.

Jeff Cherun END

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Larenz Tate is a genius!!!
Review: Tate breathes life into Anthony Curtis, a well-rounded, young man who decides to become a "man" and go into the military against his parents wishes. He steps over into foreign land to witness unspeakable acts of terror and longing to come back to the "real world." He returns to the Bronx, where life has dealt him a cruel hand. He is out of work, and has mouths to feed, and is struggling to carve out an existence with the only scraps that he was given. When one of his friends talks of robbing a armed truck, loaded with unmarked "dead presidents", the idea explodes into an plan to save themselves. Curtis, Skippy (played by Chris Tucker) Cleon,(played by B Woodbine)Kirby and his other war-buddies decide to pull off a heist of a lifetime. Or so they thought. Things run haywire and the plan fails. This movie was excellent. A little gory, but good to the last scene.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: very well written
Review: many people have told me about this movie, but for some reason it kept on slipping my mind but i just watched it finally and it was spectacular. the acting was top notch and the plot was up there with it as well. the characters are completely believable and that is what makes a movie good. i have been a fan of chris tucker since friday, so i am surprised i haven't seen this before, but he played the role of a man who cannot handle reality so he became an addict. he did that very well.

there was a funky part where a preachers son cut the head off one of the vietnam enemies and kept it in his bag. i thought that was pretty funny because everyone was getting tired of the nasty smell but he wanted to hold onto it like a trophy.

i wasn't surprised by the ending, but i felt bad for the guy even though he did what he did. i'll leave it at that for anyone else who haven't seen this movie yet. this is a must watch performance and i pretty much recommend it to anyone.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: "Everyone in this town knows I've only got one leg.
Review: And that mofo grabbed the wrong one."

"I am where I am, and I be where I be. If I chased every ho who came a calling, I'd be confused. She's going to make me hurt my pimp hand again."

Dead Presidents is a coming of life movie depicting the decisions for a young black youth during the time of the Vietnam War. He has to decide what choices to make after college, and he has his mind set on joining the Marines. He is of course shipped to Vietnam where he has the experiences that can haunt a man for life.

Anthony, our main character is then shipped home, where his expectations of his new life is to pick-up where his old life left off. He hopes to run numbers, make money, his high school girlfriend to have not moved on or changed, and life to be easier then it is. As a Vietnam vet adjusting to life after the war while trying to support his family seems impossible, but the chance of a better life may involve crime, a heist, and unexpected bloodshed.

"My great great great granddaddy was a pimp and a slave. He would have his hoes out in the field picking his cotton for him, he didn't have to do a goddamn thing!"

The biggest complaint you are going to get from this movie, other then maybe the violence, but what do you expect from a half hour sequence in Vietnam, is the ending. Dead Presidents is a real life story, which is how it happened. I have actually added the book that tells the real life story of Anthony to my Amazon wish list. It is called "Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans." I really look forward to reading the life of Anthony (real name Ari Sesu Merretazon or Haywood Kirkland).

The ending was realistic. The majority of the time when you commit a crime, especially like that, you get caught. That is what it boils down to, especially when you have to use the get away car like that, they were in trouble from the off set.

Nevertheless, this is a very, very good movie, extremely underrated in my opinion. This belongs in your DVD collection. Yes it is a depressing movie, but so is life, especially during this time of war. Also, the sound track is also a must have. As I watched this movie in high school I remember thinking I must go buy this sound track right away.

Grade: A



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