Review of Marked for Death (1990) by Gina W — 12 May 2010

Marked for Death.

Blu-Ray (1990, 2010).

"Marked for Death" was directed by Dwight H. Little and written by Michael Grais and.

Mark Victor. Steven Seagal plays Drug Enforcement Agent John Hatcher who returns to his home town to relax after the death of his partner on the job. They say you can never go home again and the case is the same here as Jamaican drug lords have taken over the place and Hatcher has to show them who is boss. Hard to believe it's been 20 years since this film was made but HD has been kind to 20-years-ago Seagal.

This martial-arts action movie is full of zippy one-liners. For example, Seagal duct-tapes a man's mouth and then asks, "Got anything else to say? I didn't think so." He issues deep messages like, "Get the **** out of town or DIE!" and seriously within one minute issues another threat finishing with, "or you DIE!".

This is a movie you can doze off for a few minutes during and you didn't miss any important, uh, plot points. Very basic low-to-no effort action shoot-em-up, hand-to-hand combat, break-each-guy's-wrist, explosions film. All you need to know is that there are bad Jamaican drug lords and they are going after Steven Seagal's family and neighborhood and the only way to stop them is to kill them with the help of football coach, Max played by Keith David who will forever remind me of "There's Something About Mary". Also there is a voodoo element involved with the bad guys so Steven Seagal has to prove his magic is "bigger" (their word, not mine) to stop everyone.

It would take some big magic indeed for Seagal to win an Oscar. It's no secret that Seagal's powers of acting are limited at best but if you want to see him break a wrist, this is the film to watch. Every line he utters is spoken at the same volume with the same inflection with a bit of a whisper backing it up and is exactly like his MADtv parody years back. But no one will watch this movie for acting, they just want to see some fun fight scenes with amplified hitting sounds that make it sound like the Street Fighter video game. He can push a big stick against someone's leg and it breaks in half, what's unrealistic about that?

Props to the big bad druglord in charge for his color contacts that make him an extra creepy dude! He does not meet a good end since he dies almost three different ways.

Obviously this has come out a few weeks before Father's Day in hopes that it'll make a good gift and if this is what your dad is into, he'll love having it on his fancy new Blu-Ray player to show anyone who comes to visit how high tech he is.

There are no Blu-Ray features, just better picture and sound to enjoy the action-packed extravaganza.