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Chris Tucker is hilarious in this movie, he has great on screen charisma, and he speaks his lines very fluidly, as if he was improvising. Larenz Tate is great as well, being able to pull off the young version of his character, since he has a boyish face. And Bokeem Woodbine reminds me of Samuel L. Jackson in this movie. The cinematography is also great and so is the acting overall. Like everyone says, its not so much as a heist movie, but a reflection on the hardships of the black individual, such as finding work and drug abuse; after fighting a war that wasnt really meant for them or their country.

I really enjoyed this movie. Everyone in it did an excellent job and it was very gripping. It keeps you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end. Larenz Tate, in his best role ever, plays Anthony Curtis, a young black man from late 1960's The Bronx, who is just a regular guy who hangs out with his friends played by Chris Tucker also in his best role ever as Skip, and Freddy Rodriguez as Jose. Shortly after graduation from high school, Anthony decides he doesn't want to follow his big brother's path of going to college but instead, joining the Marine Corps and fight for his country. Shortly thereafter, we are taken to Vietnam with the boys and we meet some other interesting characters, one of them a psychotic preacher, Cleon, played by Bokeem Woodbine,and the Vietnam sequences are executed very realistically and are very bloody. After a while, we are taken back to the boogie down Bronx, where Anthony upon returning to the old neighborhood after four years,realizes that things are even worse than before, and everyone, including his pre-Vietnam girlfriend, Juanita, all have taken their lives in a different direction. Anthony is now a father, and cannot find a job anywhere and realizes that his own country has turned his back on him and many young black veterans from 'Nam, including his old boys Skip and Jose. We also meet Kirby, played by Keith David, a once cold and ruthless hustler, who has now left the life because the corruption of the city has forced him to quit his old habits, and Juanita's sister Delilah, played by N'Bushe Wright, who is an activist with the Black Panthers. Pretty soon all of these characters, save Juanita, fed up with their lives and their situation, get together to plan a stickup on an armored truck that is making a pickup of old dollar bills and is taking them to a location in Washington to burn them. The stickup sequence is very well made, but of course, bloody. This movie is filled with great performances, the best coming from Larenz Tate, Bokeem Woodbine and Keith David, heart-pounding action and good dialogue. A Hughes Brothers' classic. 9.5 out of 10.

For all those who liked the movie "Menace 2 Society",you are going to love this one. This movie features the star from Menace to Society "Larenz Tate" and the well known "Chris Tucker". This is a very violent movie and have a few very gory scenes of the Vietnam war,but that is okay because this movie really shows how difficult it must have been for a black man growing up in the Bronx in the 60's.And it shows how life is for him and his friends after coming home from the Vietnam war. The language in this movie is of course very tough and rough and I could actually count the f-word 247 times in this movie and that speaks for it's self.

This is an extremely well made movie that really shows the reality of how hard the world can be for some people.

I advice everybody to go out and pick up this movie, because it is a story that you got to hear.

"Dead Presidents" is a classic in my book. I could suffice with that statement but I'll add a bit more. It was a well acted and well directed drama that seemed to be funny when it needed to be (thank you Chris Tucker), dramatic when it needed to be, and even violent when it needed to be. Some of, if not most of the violence was pretty graphic--that can be taken as a positive or negative. I'm not perturbed by it, but I can see how some are.

I loved the story. It was simple yet complex. It was really about five years in the life of a young Black man from New York spanning from 1968 to 1973. From his high school years on the streets of the Bronx, to his years in Vietnam, to his return to a family and struggling with life in the world. I think "Dead Presidents" was an excellent production that didn't short change us at all in any aspect.

The Hughes Brothers tried to play up the same angle with "Dead Presidents" as Micheal Cimino and Louis Garfinkle did with "The Deer Hunter" by portraying the social effects that the Vietnam war had on its young veterans. And for a while, it seemed as though they were quite successful. But in the end, it became apparent why "The Dead Presidents" fell short of the Academy recognition that "The Deer Hunter" won.

Set in the late 60s and early 70s, the plotline of "Dead Presidents" follows a promising and popular inner-city high school graduate, Anthony Curtis (Larenz Tate), who decides to forego college and enter the Vietnam War as a member of the Marine Corps. Anthony survives a graphic and arduous three-plus-year stint in the jungle, but upon his homecoming, he realizes that the "real world" can be just as trying as war. His low-paying job provides little support for his new family and he becomes desperate to make ends meet. He enlists the help of some old friends and plans a daring armored car heist which, if successful, could serve to amend his past and brighten his future...

The first seventy-five minutes of this movie were really well done. Character traits and relationships were well-established and the mood was properly set as suspense built for the anticipated war scenes--a perfect "epic-caliber" introduction.

But instead of continuing with a detailed flow, the directing crew tried to cram about ninety minutes worth of material into the final forty-five minutes, and consequently did not leave themselves enough time to totally develop any strong climactic progression or aptly characterize any of the cast members into their sudden postwar "criminal complex." Thus, the "heist scene," which based on advertising was probably supposed to be one of the more memorable and authoritative parts of the film, seemed to be almost too "spur-of-the-moment" and lacked motivation and definition.

All in all, the film's running time, which was approximately 119 minutes, was simply far too short for the storyline. The postwar segment of the film (the last forty-five minutes) was indeed key in separating a decent movie like "Dead Presidents" from a epic masterpiece like "The Deer Hunter."

Besides the first seventy-five minutes, a couple of notably good performances given by Chris Tucker as Skip (Anthony's best friend) and Rose Jackson as Juanita (Anthony's girlfriend) do make "Dead Presidents" a movie worth seeing at least once. That said, I would warn not to create a preconception based on the title, tagline or any publicity images that you might have seen, because they apply only to a small portion of the action.