The film chronicles the life of Anthony Curtis (Larenz Tate), focusing on his teenage years as a high school graduate and his experiences during the Vietnam War as a Recon Marine.

Dead Presidents is based partly on the real-life experiences of Haywood T. Kirkland (aka Ari S. Merretazon), whose true story was detailed in the book Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans by Wallace Terry.

Once in Vietnam, Curtis and his squad lose several fellow Marines during combat, and commit several atrocities of their own, such as executing enemy prisoners and beheading Viet Cong corpses for war trophies.

Skip is now an Agent Orange victim and heroin addict; Jose, forced to wear a prosthetic hand, is a pyromaniac who works as a postman at the James A. Farley Building, and Cleon, the squad's religious but homicidal staff sergeant, is now a devoted minister in Mount Vernon.

After being laid off from his job at a butcher shop, on the verge of alcoholism, and suffering from heavily induced PTSD nightmares, Anthony finds himself unable to support Juanita (who is having an affair with a pimp) or his infant daughter.

After an argument with Juanita, Anthony meets her sister, Delilah, who is now a member of the "Nat Turner Cadre", a militant Black power Marxist group.

Anthony, Kirby, Skip, Jose, Delilah and Cleon devise a plan to rob an armored car making a stop at the Noble Street Federal Reserve Bank.

However the judge, a Marine and Battle of Guadalcanal veteran, proclaims that Anthony has forgotten his values and shouldn't use the Vietnam War as an excuse for his actions, sentencing him to fifteen years to life.

[6] Todd McCarthy of Variety gave the film a positive review stating, "In all respects an extremely ambitious follow-up to their crackling debut, Menace II Society, the Hughes Brothers' mordant Dead Presidents may eventually box itself into a narrative dead end, but its muscular engagement of weighty themes and explosive situations makes it a powerful drama.

Made with fluid skill and a passion for storytelling, its tale of how the Vietnam War and American society affect a black Marine remains accessible while confounding expectations.

"[9] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a mixed 2.5 star review, and explained that the directing duo "have a sure sense of the camera, of actors, of the life within a scene.