3 minute thoughts: Dead Presidents

Larenz Tate paralyzed screens as “America’s worst nightmare” in Menace II Society. “Young, Black, and didn't give a fuck.” Now in the follow up to their 1993 cultural milestone and sleeper hit at the box office, the Hughes Brothers bring him back to lead Dead Presidents. As one letterboxd user aptly put it in one sentence, “A story of three prisons for Black men.” Meaning the streets, Vietnam, and incarceration.  

We begin in the streets, following a bright-eyed Anthony Curtis in the North Bronx running numbers in pool halls for his neighborhood mentor. The late 60s carried with it an optimism that ran into a brick wall of reality in the 1970s. Civil rights continued to struggle, the Vietnam War raged on, Haight-Ashbury Park hippies grew up and got a job, and New York deteriorated even further. 1968, marked by the assassinations of MLK and RFK and the subsequent riots, was a beginning to the end of that optimism. 

Then we dramatically shift into the horrors of Vietnam and the unwelcoming return of our veterans, especially Black veterans returning home to communities that were worse off then when they left. Constructive movements and community resources like the Black Panthers were systemically dismantled, and filling that vacuum was the drug trade. Heroin flourished when traumatized and disabled vets were coming back from Southeast Asia with nasty habits, it was a depressing cycle. Very clever to have Martin Sheen cameo as a judge who mentions his past as a Marine, a nice nod to Apocalypse Now. And speaking of appearances, we get to see Bokeem Woodbine and Michael Imperioli in the same recon squad before becoming Massive Genius and Chrissy in The Sopranos.

*SPOILERS*

And finally incarceration, a stark reality of so many. The movie ends on a sobering note. There’s no happy ending, no narration from Caine like in Menace II Society about acknowledging his wrongdoings and what he wished he could have done differently. Just anger. “Life? The fuck he mean life? After all the shit I did for this motherfucking country?” The movement has been shot down, shown literally through the death of a Black Panther in a blaze of gunfire. 

There’s strong themes of bruised masculinity played throughout, pertaining to fatherhood and infidelity. Alright, no amount of flowery language can convey how wild it is when a Bronx pimp pipes your baby-moms while you’re overseas, then proceeds to kick you down a flight of stairs and tries to get you to perform oral on his gun. Good lord, the kind of stuff

that makes you shiver in your boots. 

It's a gutting final moment for Dead Presidents, as the camera pulls overhead the prison transport bus revealing row after row of nameless faceless inmates, reduced to just numbers in the system. The only thing stopping this from being a true bummer is the perfectly curated R&B soundtrack: James Brown, Barry White, Curtis Mayfield, Al Green, Aretha Franklin. Very fitting, as DOP Lisa Rinzler talked about screening many blaxploitation classics with the Hughes Brothers in preproduction to get the feel of their 70s period piece right. Honestly this whole film is one great hip hop sample, I see what Jay-Z was on.

As Issac Hayes’ “Walk on By” serenades us to a close, Anthony stares stoically out the window as the last bits of free ground pass beneath him. He contemplates his future behind bars, a victim of both his own actions and of circumstance. If I had to pick a song to go to prison to, it’d be that one.