Marked for Death (1990)

Written by CinemaSerf on April 20, 2022

"Hatcher" (Steven Seagal) has to come out of retirement when a lethal gang of Jamaican drug dealers decide to avenge themselves upon him and his family after he killed one of their number when he was an American DEA agent. After some initial skirmishes, he sets out with his two friends "Max", a singularly deadly football coach (Keith David) and Chicago cop "Charles" (Tom Wright) to hunt down "Screwface" (Basil Wallace). It's procedural, totally devoid of any originality and brutal at times - but then it is a Steven Seagal film, so that ought not to be a surprise. The dialogue ("I'd give you the sweat off my balls!") is best overlooked most of the time and the quality of the acting from the star on down is pretty ropey. In it's favour, it is an end-to-end action movie with plenty going on, but after you have seen it I suspect you will wonder just how Seagal ever became such an hot box office property. He is completely charm free, as is much of this mediocre vendetta movie.