THE ONES THAT NEARLY GOT AWAY #5: a review of "DEAD PRESIDENTS" (1995)

“DEAD PRESIDENTS” (1995)
Story by Albert & Allen Hughes and Michael Henry Brown
Screenplay Written by Michael Henry Brown
Produced and Directed by The Hughes Brothers
***1/2 (three and a half stars)

“February 12th, 1973
The prayers of thousands were answered
The war was over, and the first of the prisoners returned
Needless to say, it was the happiest day in up to thirteen years for most
For others, the real nightmare had just begun
The nightmare of readjustment
And for those, we will pray…”
-Funkadelic (“March To The Witch’s Castle”-1973)

It will never cease to amaze me at how much symmetry and synchronicity there exists in the world. For the purposes of the following review, I will mainly turn my attention to the arts and how one thematic form of expression somehow leads you to another similar, yet unique, thematic form of expression.

Just a few days ago, I finished reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five for the very first time. For the uninitiated, the novel partially revolves around the events of World War II as they pertain to the time-travelling protagonist Billy Pilgrim, who served and spent time as a prisoner of war in the confines described in the title (just as Vonnegut did himself). Somehow and simultaneously I have been doing some reading about musician Roger Waters’ current live concert and theatrical re-staging of “The Wall,” the classic work he originally composed and performed with his former band, Pink Floyd. That material also partially revolves around the emotional trauma of World War II as the main character Pink (a stand-in of sorts for Waters), deals with the psychological despair of growing up without ever knowing his father, who perished during the war. With these two thematic experiences of war and the irreparable damage that emerges and remains, I was highly surprised to land upon “Dead Presidents,” the 1995 drama from The Hughes Brothers, which deals with the Vietnam war and its irreparable damage from the African-American perspective. It was a film I had meant to see during the time of its original release but for one reason or another, it passed me by only to find me now. It was as if I was meant to see it at this particular time.

Utilizing a structure seen in Oliver Stone’s “Born On The Fourth Of July” (1989) and Michael Cimino’s untouchable “The Deer Hunter” (1979), “Dead Presidents” begins in 1968 and chronicles the Bronx set tale of Anthony Curtis (Larenz Tate) before, during and most crucially, after his horrific experiences in Vietnam. As the film begins, we witness Anthony, alongside his two best friends, Jose (Freddy Rodriguez) and the fast talking Skip (Chris Tucker in a rare dramatic performance) as they ponder their respective futures at the cusp of completing high school. Anthony hails from a middle class family, has a college graduate brother (Isaiah Washington in a cameo appearance), a girlfriend named Juanita (Rose Jackson) and tiptoes on the dark side with his streetwise alliances with Korean War vet and small time crook Kirby (the excellent Keith David). Strongly desiring to partake in the rites of passage that will assist him in growing into manhood, and despite protests from his friends and family, Anthony’s dreams consist of foregoing college to enlist in the Marines to fight in Vietnam.

By 1971, Anthony is plunged into the Hell of war alongside Skip, Jose and new allies including Cleon (the fearsome Bokeem Woodbine), a preacher’s son with a near biblical level of grotesque wartime vengeance. Anthony witnesses seemingly all horrors of war, committed upon and by the troops, during his two tours of duty from disembowelment, euthanasia, a particularly nasty decapitation and castration. Forcing himself to not think about the world and newborn daughter he left behind in the Bronx is Anthony’s sole means of survival in an experience no one could fully imagine or should ever endure.

The crux of the film arrives after Anthony returns from the war in 1973 to find how he and his friends have coped with their experiences as they are all in the throes of the nightmare of readjustment. Skip, who dabbled in drugs during the war, is now a heroin addict. Jose, a demolitions expert who lost is hand during the war, is now an unhinged pyromaniac. Cleon has also returned from the war and now makes his living as a fire and brimstone preacher. Anthony finds meager employment in a neighborhood butcher shop and attempts to provide for Juanita and the daughter, he soon discovers just may not even be his own. Eventually losing his job, due to the lack of business and with absolutely no government assistance to help sustain himself, Anthony grows desperate. He soon enlists Skip, Jose, Cleon, Kirby, and Juanita’s Black Nationalist sister Delilah (N’Bushe Wright) for a criminal plot to rob an armored car making a stop at the Noble Street Federal Reserve Bank of the Bronx, while all wearing skeletal white makeup.

“Dead Presidents,” for much of its running time, is a highly successful hybrid of a heist film, war movie, examination of the decline of an African-American neighborhood and community and most of all, an indictment of the U.S. government for its lack of support for those who have given their lives for this country. The first third, with its vivid, warm colors, brilliant late 1960’s period design and elegant “Scorsese-ian” cinematography, perfectly executes a time and place with the bittersweetness of a classic soul song. And it is that very bittersweetness that makes the film’s powerful last third so effective. The lushly warm colors transform to drab grays or cold blues. The vibrancy of early scenes gives way to a closed up, wintry feel as the snow constantly flies and neighborhood inhabitants physically draw into themselves for protection against the elements, meteorological and socio-economically. The raging bank heist that occurs near the conclusion of “Dead Presidents” almost feels like the collective frustrations of not only disillusioned soldiers, but of a stricken community, boiling over into unadulterated fury. The tension and violence crackles as steam rises from the bowels of the streets, like the (again) “Scorsese-ian” subterranean smoke witnessed in his dark comedy “After Hours” (1985). It is one of many visual techniques and stylistic touched that re-affirms the narrative and accentuates the character’s motivations and tribulations. And for most of “Dead Presidents,” the Hughes Brothers prove that they are born filmmakers.

Larenz Tate, an underappreciated actor I have long admired, gives a powerfully subtle performance that minutely depicts the path from youthful exuberance and hope to the psychological descent he reaches. With his boyish face, he always appears to be a bit too youthful for the experiences he is faced with and this is not just due to the war and bank heist sequences. When either confronting his first sexual tryst with Juanita, being plagued with nightmares after war, or defending himself against the hoodlum (a charismatic Terrence Howard) who once tormented him in a pool hall so long ago, Anthony is almost always overtaken with the full weight of each experience. When dealing with supporting a family with scraps or holding his own against the gun toting neighborhood gangster (a scary Clifton Powell) who may indeed be the true father of his daughter, Anthony almost always stands as a child trapped in the adult world he never made. His wishes of attaining the experiences from which he can truly become a man have been doled out to him in a rapid and unforgiving fashion. And the act of keeping his head above that proverbial water, make him appear as a child lost in a grim fantasy or bad dream not of his choosing, hoping his mother will at long last call him home for dinner or wake him up. The effect is crushing.

It was actually through Tate’s performance that my mind drifted back to the Vonnegut novel as it possesses the secondary title of “The Children’s Crusade.” Tate’s Anthony, plus the characters portrayed by Tucker and Rodriguez, are the physical embodiments of Vonnegut’s Children’s Crusade, used, unappreciated and thrown away by the country they chose and/or were drafted to defend. Even Keith David’s character of Kirby is a generational casualty of war, that same Children’s Crusade, as the lack of government support upon his return from the Korean War forced him into a minor life of crime, designed to assist him with the basic survival expenses of living in a once vibrant community that is now transforming into a ghetto. The film doesn’t begin to suggest a veritable rightness for Kirby and Anthony’s actions. It just presents everything in an unjudgemental, matter of fact way yet the anger the Hughes Brothers launch against an uncaring government is palpable.

What is least successful about “Dead Presidents,” and surprisingly so, is the film’s Vietnam war midsection which suffers to a certain artificial stature not seen in the first and final thirds of the film. Everything feels like a movie set (perhaps for budgetary reasons), and that lack of authenticity seemed to be overcompensated for by an extreme level of graphic, almost comic book level of gore and bloodshed that was oft putting. In some ways, it seemed as if the Hughes Brothers were aiming to scale the war sequence heights set by Stone in “Born On The Fourth Of July” and “Platoon” (1986), Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” (1987) and of course, the granddaddy of them all Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” (1979). It was indeed an attempt I fully appreciate, yet it was ultimately gratuitous and all felt to be a constant strain. As I think back to “Born On The Fourth Of July,” I strongly realize that Oliver Stone achieved more with one, single, solitary gunshot than the Hughes Brothers accomplished with the copious bloodshed on display. At times, there seemed to be enough “horrors of war” to fill three movies and the effort weakened the film for a spell.

But, if you are able to stomach that midsection, I think you will be highly rewarded with a strong drama that never loses its focus by keeping the lives of these young men and the community from which they originated at the forefront. The sense of loss, pain and suffering the Hughes Brothers present in "Dead Presidents" is undeniable as we witness a cold harsh winter in America inflicted upon our nation's children.