MARKED FOR DEATH (1990)
R
93 Minutes
Director: Dwight H. Little
Writers: Michael Grais, Mark Victor
Steven Seagal, Keith David Joanna Pacula, Basil Wallace
Cast
Steven Seagal--John Hatcher
Basil Wallace--Screwface
Keith David--Max
Give me what I need and I'll leave here a nice guy. If you don't, I'm gonna fuck you up.'
-John Hatcher
Before starting his career as a blues musician, and even before the Mountain Dew commercials. We had Steven Seagal in his prime. He's a man, widely regarded as the biggest asshole in Hollywood. But would the biggest asshole in Hollywood sexually harass Jenny McCarthy, while she auditions for UNDER SEIGE II. AND get anointed by the Dalai Lama? Perhaps.
John Hatcher, 35, retires from the DEA, after his partner gets killed. He takes this newly found abundance of free time, and does a little soul searching. John stops by the old neighborhood, and pays the family a visit, hanging out there for a bit.
'Since when did anyone ever accuse me of being sane?'
One day, while he's catching up with an old friend at the pub, trouble found him. Rastafarian, dope-pushers, spray the pub with oozys. Reluctantly, he comes out of retirement. He can no longer ignore the thugs that have taken the town hostage.
Screwface has been pushing crack to high school kids. But he's not all bad, he gives kids free samples during school functions.
So he teaches the drug king pin...Damien Marley... I mean 'Screwface' a lesson in manners. Screwface vows revenge.
So What's The Deal With The Title?
'It's an African black magic symbol. lt was used by the Jamaican drug gang the other night...
you've talked or exposed them...and have been marked for death... This may seem ridiculous
to you, Hatcher, but these people are for real. Your family has been marked.'
Time To Bring Out The Big Guns
Most of the movie, he's rocking the stone-washed jeans, and a black sports coat. It's the fashion equivalent to the mullet: business on top, and party on the bottom. He enhances this, already spectacular ensemble, with a Madison Avenue ponytail. Way to 'discipline your image'... man.
If you pay attention closely, you'll notice a young, Danny Trejo. No, wait, that guy was born 50 years old.
Because they are all so similar, it's completely unnecessary to review any other Steven Seagal movie, but I still might, it's all just too much fun.
Steven Seagal is a student of eastern philosophy, and appropriately enough, his movie is like the Yin-Yang symbol. MARKED FOR DEATH, simultaneously, manages to be both bad and good; striking the right balance between two opposing forces, and achieving perfection.
Final Verdict: 100 out 100
