Dead Presidents – This film is not at all like it is marketed, and that’s not wholly a bad thing. Nevertheless, my less savvy self wanted the heist-hyped story, the one promised me by the back of the DVD case AND the movie trailer, both media marketing tools I rely on heavily to gain a sense of the picture. In this case, I was deceived, indeed, the entire world was deceived into watching a black Forrest Gump without the retarded kid or the wedding reunion of a once de-legged Gary Sinise. The heist of a couple million dollars of unmarked currency (hence the name) occupies less than 1/8 of the entire movie, a fact I am still marvelling over after rethinking the chain of events that led me to rent the DVD.
It’s the box cover, featuring a white-faced perpetrator with a gun gazing diligently into the light–not unsatisfactory for a tease of what’s to come. I reveled in the chance to view an un-white take on what is typically a white occupation (heists are for whites, convenience store robberies are for blacks, right?). Instead, I was treated to the life story of Anthony Curtis (Lorenz Tate), beginning just before high school graduation, continuing on to his years in Vietnam, then back to the Bronx as a washed-out soldier with a wife and new baby to feed. With no jobs available, he hatches a scheme to hit a government armoured truck carrying cash scheduled for destruction. The details of the plan are barely discussed, and the heist itself is a downer, although I can see that the point of the story is to downplay the importance of the heist and instead focus on the choices one individual makes in life and their cumulative effects in the long run.
The acting in this is what makes the story work, for it is not a particularly scintillating plot. Lorenz Tate fills the big shoes of Curtis, and is equally matched by magnificent performances from Keith David and Chris Tucker. Their portrayal of black men on the streets in the 1960′s and 1970′s is tempered with the hindsight of the civil rights movement, revolutionary changes in economic strata of their particular demographic, and the awful effects of poverty and drugs. Their performances are solid yet unforgiving, lending power and credence to a story that lacks for a real beginning or resolution.