Forget 'Heat,' This Forgotten Crime Thriller Pulls Off an Even More Ambitious Genre Trick

Heist films have been a dime a dozen in Hollywood for decades, right up through this year's well-received Crime 101. Few, though, manage to reach the dizzying heights scaled by directors like John Frankenheimer, Michael Mann, and William Friedkin; for every Ronin or Heat, there's a Triple Frontier or Triple 9. The 1990s proved fertile ground for the genre, though, and the Hughes Brothers' criminally underseen Dead Presidents is one of the very best.

Ostensibly a heist thriller with a single iconic image adorning its marketing materials (the eerie face paint worn by its protagonists), Dead Presidents is so very much more than that. It's a warm, lived-in story of growing up in the Bronx, an exploration of the financial and psychological prisons erected by systemic racism, and a terrifying Vietnam picture. The Hughes Brothers pack the film with Scorsese and De Palma-like energy, directing it like it's the last one they'll ever lens, and it features powerful early performances by Chris Tucker and Freddy Rodriguez.

'Dead Presidents' Is 'Heat' Meets 'The Deer Hunter' — From a Black Perspective

Dead Presidents begins as a low-key slice of life, depicting the lives of New York City Black and Latino teens in the 1960s. The Hughes Brothers direct it all electrically, channeling a bit of Scorsese's Mean Streets, but also displaying the delicate character touches that characterized their prior film. Larenz Tate's Anthony loses his virginity while working on the sly for local crook Slim (the incomparable Keith David, sporting superhuman charisma and a fake leg) and graduates from high school, while the specter of Vietnam hangs over everything. And part of what makes the film stand out among the crowded roster of top-tier 90s heist films is the amount of attention lavished on details of the characters' lives pre-Vietnam. After-school jobs, crushes, petty crime — it all feels alive.

Soon enough, though, Anthony and his best friends (played by Tucker, Bokeem Woodbine, and Rodriguez) find themselves "in the shit," and the Hughes Brothers go from Anthony's tearful goodbye to his childhood sweetheart to his coming of age in the jungles of Vietnam in a breathtaking transition shot that crosses continents in an instant. The film then becomes a freight train of violence, rocketing straight into despair.

The Hughes Brothers' War and Robbery Sequences Prove They're Masters of Chaos

The war sequences of Dead Presidents are among the most harrowing in cinema. With a sprawling Florida ranch doubling for the jungles of Vietnam, Albert and Allen Hughes maintain absolute control amid the chaos, as screams, smoke, and mangled bodies fill the screen. Going beyond typical Vietnam clichés, the directors venture into gory horror territory, as Woodbine's psychotic Cleon begins chopping "trophies" off fallen enemies and takes to carrying a rotting severed head around with him.

There's no coming back from any of it for any of them — and the United States government couldn't care less about their plight. Among the survivors, Tucker's character takes a heartbreaking turn to heroin addiction, Rodriguez's loses a hand, and Anthony himself finds it increasingly difficult to make ends meet as his high-school sweetheart turns to a pimp to provide. The movie's heartbreaking post-war scenes give way to a climactic heist sequence as the men team up to rob an armored truck of thousands in titular "dead presidents" (discontinued currency). With seemingly no other choice, they turn to violence once again.

The Hughes Brothers wring masterful tension from the build-up, using plenty of 1970s-style long shots and slow zooms. And when things kick off, the gunfight is as bloody, chaotic, and frightening as the Vietnam scenes. While the aftermath of the robbery follows predictable beats, the Hughes Brothers infuse it all with palpable rage and desperation. It's a classic example of a film made up of distinct, standout sequences that still ends up feeling like so much more.

While critics, including Roger Ebert, were lukewarm upon the film's 1995 release, Dead Presidents has been steadily recognized as one of the standout films of the 1990s and a worthy follow-up to the Hughes Brothers' Menace II Society. For audiences who missed the crime/war masterpiece, it's waiting to be rediscovered on Starz and free on Philo TV.