Film Review: Marked for Death (1990)

Film stars, just like the film creators, should be commended when they experiment and try to stray from established formula even when the results of such experiments leave much to be desired. One such failed experiment occurred early in the career of Steven Seagal – with his third film, 1990 action thriller Marked for Death, directed by Dwight H. Little.

In the film Seagal plays John Hatcher, DEA agent whose latest mission in Colombia goes very wrong, with dealers killing his partner and Hatcher himself being forced to kill young woman in self-defence. Troubled by conscience and frustrated by the lack of any palpable results in his work, he quits DEA and decides to return to his home town of Lincoln Heights, a Chicago suburb, where he would visit his family and old friends. However, even that quiet little town has been affected by flood of illegal drugs coming to America, with local youth creative lucrative market for rival gangs of dealers – Colombians led by Tito Barco (played by Al Israel) and Jamaican “Possee” led by Screwface (played by Basil Wallace), vicious and intimidating drug lord who controls his men by exploiting Jamaican voodoo-like cult. Hatcher gets accidentally involved in conflict and Screwface orders his men to shoot up his family’s home, wounding his 12-year old niece Tracey (played by Danielle Harris). Hatcher now doesn’t have any choice than go to war against Screwface, receiving help from Max Keller (played by Keith David), high school football coach and his old Army friend. However, in order to bring down Screwface they would require information that can be provided by Jamaican police detective Charles Marks (played by Tom Wright).

Steven Seagal for almost entirety of his career played no-nonsense protagonists who act decisively in situations other people would despair. In Marked for Death, however, his character is beset with self-doubt and defeatism and even allows himself luxury to express views that illegal drug trade can’t be suppressed, something quite heretical for Hollywood at this stage of War on Drugs. This concept would have worked if Seagal had acting ability to convincingly display such emotions. Seagal isn’t helped even by some of the actors not acting their best (like Kevin Dunn as typical bureaucratically-minded FBI agent or Joanna Pacula in wasted role of Caribbean religions expert). Alas, he doesn’t, so the audience would have to wait for that subplot to play out and John Hatcher again becomes unstoppable and ultra-efficient crime-destroying machine associated with Seagal’s image. Seagal as an action hero in this film delivers the goods, especially in the second part, helped by competent direction by Dwight H. Little. In the meantime, audience can see how scriptwriters tried to new and exotic brand of drug-dealing villains to Hollywood films. They chose Jamaicans who, with their strange accent, strange beliefs and strange hairstyles looked almost alien-like (an effect that also would be used in Predator 2); Basil Wright plays their leader as almost demonic and completely unrepentant in his evil. In order to evade accusations of racism and xenophobia, scriptwriters add character of protagonist’s best friend and comrade who happens to black, as well as character of good Jamaican who happens to be policeman. Part of the film actually takes place in Jamaica which is depicted as something quite different from tourists’ paradise – a place of great poverty, where it is quite easy for many unfortunate people to succumb to temptations offered by crime. Marked for Death even offers some local flavour by accompanying music score by James Newton Howard by reggae songs, including “John Crow” (co-written by Jimmy Cliff and Steven Seagal) that serves as some sort of Greek chorus near the end of film. Unfortunately, it is too short and comes too late to generally improve impression affected by poor characterisation and some of the unresolved subplots in the first part. Marked for Death, despite those flaws, had impressive success on box office, but it still remains one of Seagal’s lesser and more disappointing works that can be recommended only to his most devout fans.

RATING: 4/10 (++)

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