There are intriguing aspects to this yarn, and the brothers can choreograph a scene, but you get the impression that they learned all they know from other movies, the blood and guts is gratuitous...
Comment
01/26/06
Dead Presidents (1995)
41
%
Tomatometer
How does the Tomatometer work 
Reviews Counted:29
Fresh:12
Rotten:17
Average Rating:5.6/10
Runtime: 2 hrs
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: The year is 1968, and Anthony, a naive, sweet black teen from the Bronx, impulsively decides to join the Marines and fight in Vietnam. After a very disturbing tour of duty, Anthony returns home in... [More]
Starring: Larenz Tate, Keith David, Chris Tucker, N'Bushe Wright
Director: Allen Hughes, Albert Hughes
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Reviews for Dead Presidents
Tate gives a strong performance as Anthony but much of this movie unfolds predictably -- the kind of action you've seen a hundred times in movies before and a thousand times on television.
01/01/00
Like those overreaching sophomore term papers we can all laugh at now, this disappointing film may free the Hughes brothers to move on to fresher, more inspired work.
05/20/03
The level of exaggerated violence and gore is so gross and disgusting that the film takes on a horror-movie look, which tends to undermine its intentions as a thoughtful exploration of troubled times for blacks.
01/01/00
The intense and excessive climactic set piece caper scene is the only true highlight in a superficial film.
01/31/09
Unfortunately, the story manages to be intense (and very bloody), heartfelt and superficial, all at the same time.
01/01/00
Top CriticAll directors experience a "second-movie slump," and as far as slumps go, this one is more than honorable.
04/17/02
Platoon lite with a bitter ending that doesn't work in its favor...
07/10/07
The Hughes Brothers' ambition is admirable, but, as with their main character, ambition gets the better of them.
01/01/00
The movie makes its point, and continues to hit you over the head with it.
01/01/00
No review available.
12/24/02
Unfortunately, the filmmakers were overzealous in trying to cover a variety of issues, leaving the story choppy and without resolution in places.
06/05/02
It's an overly ambitious effort that strains to work as a coming-of-age drama, a 1960s period piece and a searing comment on the way African American GIs went largely unappreciated for their war efforts.
06/18/02
Top CriticWhat emerges is an uneasy blend of didacticism and juiced-up bloodletting (the brothers don't know when to stop with the exploding squibs) that bury the film's message and its good intentions.
05/12/01
Top CriticNo review available.
05/05/03
Here is a film that feels incomplete, as if its last step is into thin air. Scene by scene you feel its skill, but you leave the theater wondering about the meaning of it all.
01/01/00
Top CriticIt features lots of heartache, a downer of an ending, and even some nasty bloodshed. But in the end, it just feels like they forgot to add something in there, but it still comes out as a pretty good film nonetheless.
01/01/00
A film that is both tightly focused -- on one man's experience in Vietnam and the South Bronx in the late '60s and early '70s -- and broadly resonant.
01/01/00
Talent of Hughes brothers deserves viewer's attention even when their results don't meet such high standards.
09/23/03
Significant as both history and film art, this gloomy film has no "convenient" villains and refuses to indulge in stereotypes, instead focusing on larger forces, such as racism and political apathy.
06/20/06
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