In the great family of Gangsta movies made during the early-to-mid 90s, Dead Presidents is the weird uncle nobody talks about. The one who brings his own booze to the family reunion and never offers to share.
Directed by The Hughes Brothers (Menace II Society), Presidents tells the story of Tony (Larenz Tate, last seen here in The Postman), a kid from the Bronx (East Side 4 Ever, baby). It's 1968 and Tony's almost done with school. Along with his droogies, Skip (Chris Tucker) and Jose (Freddy Rodríguez, the Token White Dude), Tony faces that choice faced by all high school graduates in 1968: College, or the Army.
Tony, making the first of several very stupid decisions, chooses the army. I hate stupid people.
Bad decision number 2 comes when Tony is suckered into being the getaway driver for local bar owner/hustler, Kirby (Keith David). Sharing a moment with his only adult friend, Kirby and Tony laugh off into the night.
Finally, we have bad decision number 3. On graduation night, Tony "does it" with his best girl Juanita (Rose Jackson). Ignorant of the Ways of the Woman (apparently no one used condoms in 1968), Tony gets her pregnant.
The next morning, running from the wrath of Juanita's mother, Tony runs all the way to Vietnam (which looks surprisingly like Florida), eventually spending 3 fun filled years there. Idiot.
It's 45 minuets into the movie and Tony has managed to alienate his parents, get his girl pregnant, become an accessory to assault, and join the most morally corrupt fighting force in the history of the world (what? you don't believe that the people who fought in Vietnam were all morally corrupt sociopaths? haven't you been watching any movies?). This, ladies and gentlemen, is our hero.
But, wait, there's more. After his tour, Tony comes back to discover how many things of changed up in the 'hood. Skip, who got out of the war a year before Tony, has become a drug addict. Jose, who had always been the drug addict, is becoming a pyromaniac. And who is that strange man hanging around Juanita's house, giving her "presents" of $100 bills?
Losing is job as a butcher (a great job for a 'Nam vet to have), and moving out on Juanita, Tony turns back to Kirby, who's in the middle of planning to rob an armored truck. Recurting his friends, and Juanita's sister, Delilah (N'Bushe Wright from Blade), the heist is planned in scenes that are, in the long run, pretty meaningless. I mean, come on, we all know Something Will Go Wrong, get to the damn gun fights, already.
Here we have the cusp of what's wrong with DP (oh, there's a sick double entente): the movie has Multiple Personality Disorder. "Hi," it'll say. "I'm a movie about how life on the streets can corrupt basically good kids." Then, you turn your back and boom, it'll say, "Hi, I'm a movie about how war can dehumanize a person." Turn your back one more time and boom. "Hi. I'm a movie about how crime doesn't pay. Stay in school, kids!"
Michael Henry Brown's script has no idea what it wants to say. Wait, scratch that, it want's to say to much, and only has 119 minuets to say it. Hey, Mike, you can make your script longer. It's OK. If The Godfather Part 3 can get away with being 4 hours long, Lord knows there are no editors in Hollywood anymore. But if you're telling a story like this and shooting for that golden 130 page script, things will get sloppy.
And boy, do they. Larenz Tate has to do a pretty fast two-step to keep up with his character's mood swings. Does this guy have any conscience? Any little voice that says, "Hey, Tony, maybe this is a bad idea,"? This guy makes so many wrong decisions it's infuriating. You just want to shout, "No, you idiot! Don't do that! Ah, hell, forget it." And couldn't we have spent a little more time getting to know Tony before he became a sociopath? Yes? No? Oh well; time to kill some zombies.
But . . . there's a bright side. Sorta. The direction is pretty good, for one thing. The Hughes Brothers know how to direct a movie, and they try their hardest to keep things moving, while dragging the script behind them. Keith (Spawn) David growls his way through the movie. Chris Tucker actually makes his annoying brand of cuss-word, jive talking comedy work, and when things get dramatic he shuts up (for once). Even N'Bushe Wright pulls down a good performance. Hell, if she were leading The Revolution, you can just point me to the guns, man.
Of course, everyone here is playing characters who are as flat as posterboard.
It's safe to say that Dead Presidents is no Menace II Society. It wants to be. But then, it also wants to be Platoon. And when a movie can't make up its fool mind, the audience pays the price.
Gs (out of a possible five)
MOCK O METER
