Episode 23: Dead Presidents

Justin:

Every movie has flaws.

And here’s the thing about flaws. When you find them in a movie you really like, you either a) justify them or b) playfully discuss them, the latter akin to when you make fun of a sibling or good friend. There’s nothing but love behind it and you mean zero disrespect.

And that’s how I feel about DEAD PRESIDENTS. Are there issues with this film? Absolutely. There are major pacing issues (mostly in the second half) and some decisions the Hughes Brothers made with characters (mostly Cleon and his actions in that same second half) that left me a bit puzzled. But I wasn’t left feeling critical toward the movie or the director brothers… Instead, I felt myself wanting more.

Everything about this story felt important and deeper than what we got. I wanted to know more about Anthony’s relationship to his older brother and his parents and maybe even what he and his boys Skip and Jose were like in high school outside of the couple scenes we got. I also would’ve enjoyed seeing Anthony doing more work for Kirby before he left for the war, and seeing that relationship deepen (I mean, there’s a reason Anthony wrote a letter to HIM and no one else, right?) While rushed, the amount of time in Vietnam does feel about right, but from the moment Anthony returns home, I wanted more details on EVERYTHING. Who is this Cutty guy, really? When Juanita is pregnant, could there have been more tension about whose child it really was? Is Terrence Howard’s “Cowboy” only there to give a beating early on and then GET a beating later? Or could there have been back-and-forth with him (after all, he DOES say that he works for Cutty!) And then of course there’s Anthony’s brief visit to a militant group meeting, his ONE drink with Delilah where he apparently convinces her to join in the heist, and then the general planning of the heist itself… all of which takes place in about 20 minutes, give or take. It all just happens too fast.

Again, I’m not really criticizing… because I loved all of it. I just wanted more of it. This is why I would 1000% support a remake of this story, but not in another 2 hour package. What about a more fleshed out limited series on HBO produced by Ava Duvernay? I feel like that just makes too much sense.

And here’s why: this is the kind of story that has to be told. 2020’s DA 5 BLOODS (which would make a great double feature with this) showed us the long term effects of Vietnam on black veterans and how real PTSD is for these brave men. But the immediacy of the changes that happen to Anthony, Skip, Jose, and Cleon, soldiers returning to a home where they were widely hated because of the color of their skin, and returning from a war that many in America were opposed to in the first place… it is all just made for deeper storytelling. I doubt it’ll happen, of course, but there’s seemingly a million other “older” movies getting the TV treatment right about now, and reusing IPs has been all the rage for so long now. So all I say is… why not this one?

Again, yeah, there are some issues with DEAD PRESIDENTS, but there’s zero reason for it to have gotten mostly panned by critics, shut-out by awards, and seemingly forgotten 25 years later. This is a legit great story in a borderline GREAT movie and should be treated as such. I can only hope that 25 years from NOW, people are still discussing this tale of war’s horrific effects and the tragedy that befell the A-1 men of color that Uncle Sam chewed up and spit out. We owe them that, at the very, very least.

Pete:

For a brief moment towards the end of DEAD PRESIDENTS, you get a glimpse of something like hope – right after Anthony and Skip finish giving poor kids presents they bought from their heist gone terribly wrong, the camera pans up to a blue sky and you get the sense that maybe these guys have done it. Maybe they’ve turned into Robin Hood and learned to live with the demons that come with living in a world that’s, at best, indifferent about your well-being. 

This quick glimmer of hope is wholly at odds with the world the rest of the movie depicts, and it’s filmed as if it might be the end of this story, a way to release the audience from the grim universe it’s inhabited for most of the previous 2 hours. Except there’s another 10 minutes left, and that’s when it all goes to shit and the film quickly ends with Anthony going to prison for possibly life. It’s a deflating gut punch – one that takes the air out of the idea that if you just do the right things, and make the right choices, everything will work out for you. This is America, after all, and that’s how the American dream works. But that world only exists for some. It exists for me. And for Justin. And for Martin Sheen’s character, a man so oblivious to this that he’s able to sit in literal judgement of a fellow veteran and turn his nose up at his military service while sentencing him to life in prison. 

Most of us are well versed in this by now, but the Hughes Brothers knew it 26 years ago. They made an entire movie about it, and its impact on communities, from the perspective of the victims. The result was an artful, entertaining movie about dismissed and forgotten people that itself was quickly dismissed and forgotten. It’s what happens to dreams, whether that’s in the failure of two artists in their early 20s with immeasurable potential, or in a society discarding a generation of men. It’s all there in that pan up to the beautiful blue sky. A false ending of hope undermined by the reality of what is.