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PRODUCT DESCRIPTION Bronx teenagers Anthony (Larenz Tate), Skippy (Chris Tucker), and José (Freddy Rodriguez) return from a tour of duty in the Vietnam war and begin to wonder what they were fighting for. The only options open to them are cheap labour, heroin addiction, and poverty, so they decide to take their future into their own hands and draw up plans to rob a bank van full of 'dead presidents' (street slang for dollar bills). If the heist goes well, they will never have to worry about money again. AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW Twin brother codirectors Albert and Alan Hughes planned their first film, the 1991 ghetto crime drama Menace II Society as a response to John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood, which they considered wimpy and moralistic. They set their sights on The Deer Hunter in this ambitious follow-up, and they just about pull it off. Larenz Tate (from Why Do Fools Fall in Love) plays Anthony Curtis, an open-hearted African American teenager who gets shipped out to Vietnam with several of his pals, witnesses unspeakable horrors and then struggles to readjust to civilian life. The evolving textures of life in a declining inner-city neighbourhood over a period of a decade are seamlessly evoked and there's enough nuanced character development and personal interaction for a seven-hour miniseries. Still in their early 20s, the Hughes brothers are already poised and masterful movie makers; they cover an enormous amount of historical and emotional ground and every twist and turn is crystal clear. They betray their inexperience only at the very end, in an elaborately staged heist sequence that, while stunningly executed, feels a bit desperate, as if they were reaching blindly for a big pay off. Chris Tucker (Rush Hour) has a startling supporting role as a kid who becomes a junkie during the war and never quite recovers. --David Chute

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