
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, October 7, 1995                   TAG: 9510100002
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JAY BOYAR ORLANDO SENTINEL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TALENTED TWINS IN OVER THEIR HEADS WITH `PRESIDENTS'

Movies about the Vietnam war were hot about a decade ago - so hot, in fact, that ``Platoon'' won the Oscar for best picture of 1986. But public interest in the war has been cooling for some time now.

Now along comes ``Dead Presidents,'' the Vietnam-war movie that no one was waiting for.

To say that the film covers familiar territory is an understatement. That said, however, ``Dead Presidents'' was directed by Allen and Albert Hughes, the young twin brothers who made an impressive debut a couple of years back with ``Menace II Society.''

The Hughes brothers are brilliant stylists - not flashy, but wonderfully adept at expressing the emotional nuances of a scene in visual terms. They also have a seemingly instinctive knack for putting the camera in just the right spot to convey the action of a scene in the simplest, most dramatic way.

Because these skills are on display in ``Dead Presidents,'' the familiar material is somewhat more involving than it probably deserves to be.

Working from a script by Michael Henry Brown, the Hugheses tell a tale spanning the years 1968-73. Their focus is Anthony Curtis, an 18-year-old African American from the Bronx who enlists in the Marines.

The film's centerpiece is Anthony's service in Vietnam, although we do see a bit of his pre-Marine life as a young numbers runner who gets his girlfriend pregnant before shipping out.

Upon his return from the war, Anthony takes a job in a butcher shop. When the shop closes down, he and some friends attempt to rob an armored car that is carrying a load of old, tattered money (``dead presidents'').

As this plot description may suggest, the Hughes brothers try to do so much here that they get in over their heads. Not only is the story of ``Dead Presidents'' overly familiar, but it suffers from a serious lack of cohesiveness.

Nevertheless, the cast is effective, including Larenz Tate as Anthony. Striking as the murderous O-Dog in ``Menace II Society,'' Tate's fine work here shows that he can also play sympathetic roles.

As Kirby, Anthony's mentor, Keith David gives a commanding performance. Chris Tucker and Freddy Rodriguez are cast as Anthony's neighborhood friends, Bokeem Woodbine plays a Marine buddy (who carries around the severed head of a Vietnamese soldier for good luck), Rose Jackson is Anthony's girlfriend and N'Bushe Wright is her political-activist sister.

Dead Presidents **

A Hollywood Pictures release playing at the Salem Valley 8. 120 min. Rated R for violence, sex and language.

by CNB