Marked for Death

• Directed by Dwight H. Little
• October 5, 1990

A former DEA troubleshooter returns to his hometown only to find it taken over by Jamaican drug dealers.

Steven Seagal at one point was a lower tier action star. Not great but passable. He managed quite a few guilty pleasures and even the classic Under Siege. Not bad for a guy plucked from obscurity to be an action star.

Marked for Death is very much a product of the era in which it came out. Drug dealers were generally the go to villains of action movies of the time despite much of Hollywood of the time announcing trips to rehab. Here for a change the drug dealers are Jamaican (they were usually Latin American). Clearly the use of Jamaicans was to make things weird since they use Obeah and the villain is called Screwface (Basil Wallace) which is a codename and not an actual name.

Seagal is former DEA Agent John Hatcher who has given up on the system and returned home where he reconnects with his sister (Elizabeth Gracen) and her precocious daughter (Danielle Harris). While hanging out with his high school coach friend Max Keller (Keith David) he is placed in a spiraling series of events where he ends the Jamaican drug posse threat and brings about peace to his lovely Illinois hometown.

This movie is a bit of a paradox for me. On the one hand I really enjoyed it but on the other when I think about it and analyze it a little bit I realize it’s not that good. In the fight scenes for example all Seagal is doing is pushing the bad guys to the ground until they get up and at some point they just decide to not get up anymore. And Seagal whips out a bladed weapon here or there and it’s just a lot of waving it around. It’s all really dumb but somehow it works.

As stories go there is very little actual narrative here. The situation that is set up is pretty straightforward with the resolution rather obvious. As padding goes there is plenty. They go all in on setting up rivalries that impact little and showing character moments for Hatcher.

Screwface as a villain is pretty much what you would expect for this movie. Over the top and a touch goofy with some seriously murderous crazy. This movie throws a curveball with him revealing a twin brother that is a shock to all-even his henchmen. I would think they would be in on that info.

This is a bad movie made good by those involved. Dwight H. Little and company took a piece of garbage and dressed it up just enough that it became watchable. He overcame generally poor acting (though David Keith and Kevin Dunn shine as usual) to give us something enjoyable. Not a classic but something worth watching again.

Ultimately Marked for Death is a guilty pleasure of a film that will appeal to old school action fans. You may feel guilty after watching but you will watch it again because it’s just enjoyable.

“I’ll fuckin’ sell anything to anybody, Hatcher, except you, man, I wouldn’t sell you the sweat off my balls.”-Jimmy Fingers