This movie was fucking crazy. I had heard of Dead Presidents. All I knew was the star of it and that there was a bank heist and face paint. That's about it. It turned out to be a movie that took place about thirty decades before I thought as well. It starts off in the late 60's and this dude Anthony is about to graduate and enlist in the Marines. Before he leaves though he ends up getting his girl Juanita pregnant so yeesh. Okay. I am bouncing all over the damn place. Let me try to explain this movie that goes from a movie about a young man making the terrible decision to join the military (I say this because I did the same thing in high school) to becoming a war movie and transforming into one of the worst heists committed to film. So Anthony lets his family know he doesn't want to go to college and they are upset. One of his friends has already been drafted and after sleeping with Juanita he tells her not to wait for him because he might not make it back.
Anthony also runs with this dude named Kirby who is a loan shark...I think. One night after Anthony gets his face cut by this dude named Cowboy (who always plays an asshole) he gets a wad of cash and asked to drive for Kirby. Kirby throws a chef through a damned window and gets his fake leg yanked off. He served in WW2 and lost it. Anthony is now enlisted and the movie turns into a war film but just a brutal ass one. Like, when someone gets shot or something there is Mortal Kombat levels of blood.
For whatever reason Skip, Anthony's funny friend, is now in the Marines with him. He flunked out of college and ended up being drafted. He is not built for this shit and is not afraid to say it. Their other friend Jose was drafted before either of them enlisted. So while in Vietnam they see all kinds of horrible shit with a good chunk of it being done by this dude named Cleon. He is a preachers son and crazy as all fuck. He cuts a dudes head off and stuffs it into his bag for good luck. More of them end up getting slaughtered and Skip just covers up and doesn't fight back. Anthony and Skip talk about things back home but Anthony don't wanna hear that shit and won't even look at the picture of his daughter and won't write Juanita back. So he's a pretty solid fella.
Four years later Anthony is back home and everyone has afros and telling him his service meant jack shit. He finds Skip who is on all of the drugs and as L. pointed out that brand new AIDS. Like, the shit has no name yet. Anthony finds Jose and he seemed to have lost his shit in war too after losing his hand. But he knows everything there is not know about explosions. Cleon went from stealing people's heads to stealing their money as a minister. Anthony gets back in touch with Juanita and shit is weird. He sits with his family and shit is weird. He ends up finding a job at a butcher shop and is showing signs of PTSD. He also figures out that Juanita was getting it on with this dude named Cutty in the most disrespectful scene. I thought she had turned to tricking but apparently Cutty was giving her money and taking care of Juanita and her daughter while Anthony was away pretending they didn't exist anymore.
This guys life is shit. He can barely take care of his family. He has nightmares. His friends are on drugs or crazy. He can't work with Kirby anymore. He beats the fuck out of Cowboy with a pool stick. He gets assaulted in the hallway by Cutty who points out how he was the man around the house while Anthony was gone and taught Juanita how to bone down. I mean, come on, sir! He ends up choking Juanita after she says that she fucked Cutty. Well, Anthony did ask. That's why there are certain questions you just don't ask.
Anthony meets up with Juanita's sister Delilah. He saw her when she was in school and later before he met his daughter she kissed him for no damned reason. She a Black Panther now. She points out that his service to the country was dumb. She also says she knows how to use weapons. I mean, she does, but she bad at it. I'll get to that soon enough. Jose knows of an armored truck carrying a bunch of money to be burned. They devise a plan to get this money. So we got Anthony a soldier with PTSD. We got Skip who is a drug addict with brand new booty cooties. We got Delilah because she can shoot a gun. Jose who is fucking nuts and just wants to blow some shit up. Kirby who is old with one leg. They need one more person so they get Cleon who is a minister and they saw with their own fucking eyes how crazy he was. So this plan is gonna be the best plan ever.
So here the plan. Anthony, Jose, and Delilah are dressed like mimes. Delilah in the trashcan. Anthony and Jose are supposed to strong arm the guards. Skip is lookout as well as Cleon. Kirby is in the getaway car. Cleon is distracted by a cop. Skip has to shoot him. Anthony gets overpowered by a guard. Delilah shoots about twenty bullets and lands maybe one. She gets shot and killed. Jose blows the armored truck up using way too much explosives. Cops come. Jose gets run over. He dead. Delilah dead. Anthony, Skip, Kirby, and Cleon are left. Its a fucking mess. They gather some of the floating, burning money and get away.
As they count the money the say Jose's family gets his cut. Cleon acts like the money is dirty and doesn't want it but ends up taking his cut as well. They find out that Cleon's crazy ass is handing out money and drawing all the attention and as Anthony is going to see him he is getting dragged away to jail. He snitches immediately. They bust into Skip's apartment but he seems to have died from a drug overdose a few days prior. Anthony and Kirby are about to make a run for it and end up caught. In court Anthony is sentenced to 15 to life and flips his shit and tosses a chair at the judge. Anthony ends up in a prison bus going away and that is how the movie ends.
This was a crazy ass movie. The soundtrack was really good. Nothing too spectacular about the directing or writing. It felt like three different movies rolled into one so none of them had time to be fleshed out. The war was fast and the heist seemed rushed. I know Anthony was doing this for his family but he attacked the mother of his child, couldn't find a job, and decided crime was the answer. Then when it was time to bounce it wasn't like he had his wife with him. He and Kirby were headed to Mexico! I felt bad because he really did get fucked over after coming home from war but every choice he made was a bad one. I would have just moved back home with my parents and figured some shit out.
And I love a good heist but this one was by far the worst I have seen in film. The planning was terrible. The execution was terrible. The team was even worse. In every heist if there are three people one of them is gonna be crazy. Just this wild card that will snap and do some dumb shit. In this the team consisted of that guy. The only one that was semi-normal was Delilah and her part in this heist was to Jack In The Box her ass out of a trashcan like Oscar The Grouch and start shooting blindly. Again, crazy ass movie. If the soundtrack wasn't so damn good I likely would have rated this a point or two lower. And ask me how many times I asked L. where the heist and face paint was. That shit happens in the last half hour.
Larenz Tate as Anthony Curtis
Keith David as Kirby
Chris Tucker as Skip
Bokeem Woodbine as Cleon
Freddy Rodriguez as Jose
Rose Jackson as Juanita Benson
N'Bushe Wright as Delilah Benson
Clifton Powell as Cutty
Terrence Howard as Cowboy
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