{"id":2155,"date":"2024-08-08T02:54:28","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T02:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2155"},"modified":"2024-10-14T14:33:39","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T18:33:39","slug":"marked-for-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/08\/marked-for-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Marked for Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Marked for Death <\/strong>(1990)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th Century Fox\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong violence, brief nudity, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Dwight H. Little\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Grais and Mark Victor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: James Newton Howard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ric Waite\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 5, 1990 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Steven Seagal, Basil Wallace, Keith David, Tom Wright, Joanna Pacula, Elizabeth Gracen, Bette Ford, Danielle Harris, Al Israel, Arlen Dean Snyder, Victor Romero Evans, Michael Ralph, Jeffrey Anderson-Gunter, Tony DiBenedetto, Kevin Dunn, Peter Jason, Danny Trejo, Earl Boen, Jimmy Cliff.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $46M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although it\u2019s an improvement over his previous film Hard to Kill, Marked for Death<\/strong> is basically business as usual for Steven Seagal. This time, the pony-tailed one takes on a Jamaican drug gang that\u2019s been spreading crack and violence throughout a quiet suburban neighborhood. It\u2019s the same basic plot template as countless other actioners.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Seagal\u2019s character, DEA agent John Hatcher, retires from the agency after a south of the border operation goes south and his partner is killed. He returns to his old hometown of Lincoln Heights, IL to spend time with his family. Things definitely aren\u2019t the way he remembers them. A Jamaican gang, led by vicious Screwface (Wallace, Rapid Fire), has taken over the local drug trade from the Colombians. Hatcher\u2019s old friend, high school football coach Max (Keith, The Thing), is disgusted and wants to do something about it. Hatcher doesn\u2019t want to get involved. That changes when a gunfight erupts between the two gangs at a local bar. He intervenes and apprehends one of the Jamaicans. In return, he and his family are \u201cmarked for death\u201d by Screwface. When his preteen niece (Harris, The Last Boy Scout) is critically injured in a drive-by, Hatcher hits the streets in search of revenge.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In general, Marked for Death<\/strong> is a serviceable albeit standard action movie. Seagal, who turns in his usual wooden performance, does what he does best and does it a lot. He beats up a lot of bad people. There\u2019s plenty of gun and sword violence too. The bad guys are sufficiently detestable, especially Screwface, a voodoo practitioner said to have magic powers of the evil kind. He\u2019s the only real stand-out in an otherwise routine genre exercise. It doesn\u2019t even distinguish itself when Hatcher and Max continue their pursuit of Screwface in Kingston. The female lead Joanna Pacula (Gorky Park), playing an expert on all things Jamaican (voodoo, symbols, gangs, etc.), gets limited screen time, only showing up when the plot requires something be explained in order to move forward.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Wallace hams it up as Screwface who, at one point, is described as having \u201ctwo heads and four eyes\u201d. It\u2019s the secret to his powers. Gee, I wonder what it could possibly mean. I just wish I could understand more of what he\u2019s saying. It\u2019s hard to make out with the heavy Jamaican accent Wallace employs. Aside from that, he\u2019s one scary dude. He scares the hell out of everybody that crosses his path. Everybody except Hatcher, that is. At least not that I can tell. There\u2019s not a lot of emotional range to him. This is Steven Seagal we\u2019re talking about here.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Obviously, nobody buys a ticket for a movie like Marked for Death<\/strong> expecting Oscar-level acting, intelligent writing or brilliant direction. It\u2019s as simple-minded as they come. They come for the action and on that level, it delivers a solid KO punch. Director Dwight H. Little (Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers) keeps it moving at a nice clip. Once again, Seagal gets to show off his superior martial arts skills by beating up dozens of bad guys. There\u2019s a cool scene where he takes on gang members in a fancy department store with a lot of glass display cases. He needs something to put their heads through, doesn\u2019t he? Besides, it goes nicely with the action star\u2019s specialty, breaking arms and other bones. This guy is a bad ass on the level of 80s actions stars like Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Norris. Seagal carries on the grand tradition of these genre pioneers. He punches, pummels, kicks, shoots, stabs, slices and bludgeons his way through an army of slimeballs in his quest for revenge. There\u2019s a certain amount of satisfaction to be had from witnessing such a spectacle. I enjoyed it as a bloodthirsty teen and still as a bloodthirsty adult. Marked for Death<\/strong> isn\u2019t exactly Shakespeare, but it\u2019ll satisfy the cravings of the most ardent action junkies.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marked for Death (1990)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 20th Century Fox\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 93 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong violence, brief nudity, drugs)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Dwight H. Little\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Michael Grais and Mark Victor\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: James Newton Howard\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Ric Waite\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 5, 1990 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Steven Seagal, Basil Wallace, Keith David, Tom Wright, Joanna Pacula, Elizabeth Gracen, Bette […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kick-ass-actioners"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Marked-for-Death-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2155"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3021,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155\/revisions\/3021"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}