Released by 20th Century Fox.
Steven Seagal has never quite made it to the Schwarzenegger level of super heroes, but his ultra-calm, steely-eyed, mystical machismo has, nonetheless, an appealing assurance about it. There is never a moment of doubt in his films about who is going to come out on top. He hardly ever gets hit, and he never allows himself to get in over his head.
This is doubly significant because unlike others of his ilk, Mr. Bond, for instance, or Jackie Chan, there is little evidence of humor or parody in his character. He’s simply a man on a mission, as he is here in one of his lesser works, "Marked for Death," and he accomplishes his objectives with a minimum of fuss and bother (but always with a maximum body count).
It would be another two years before Seagal made his landmark film, "Under Siege," and another half dozen years before he stopped wearing his shirts tucked in. For fans of action movies, this one may just be average, but it still maintains a respectable level of interest if only by virtue of its topnotch image quality and sonics.
Seagal always plays Seagal, of course, but this time he’s John Hatcher, a DEA agent who is burned out on death and the futility of trying to stop drug trafficking. Fed up, he decides to retire, moves back to his home town, a quiet Chicago suburb, and joins his family and friends in the hope of finding peace and quiet. Naturally, he doesn’t. He finds Jamaican drug gangs moving into his old neighborhood, and he has to stop them. Well, it takes him about half the film to make up his mind, after he and his family are marked for death, but once in action he’s a one-man, kung-fu army. With the help of a Jamaican cop and an old buddy, he goes to war against the villainous Screwface and his formidable posse, following the bad guys all the way to Jamaica and back. He finds some dead ends along the way, but nothing stops him once he makes up his mind.
What’s more, in the tradition of all action movies (I think it’s in the contract), the evil doers never just kill our hero; they always leave him to an expected fate worse than death, from which he invariably escapes. Like Seagal gets crushed into a car, which the gangsters then light on fire. Don’t just shoot him! And then there is the mandatory "Bullet"-like car chase and the occasional Bond-like quips. Predictable fluff.
By John J. Puccio. Submitted by Amos.
Steven Seagal has never quite made it to the Schwarzenegger level of super heroes, but his ultra-calm, steely-eyed, mystical machismo has, nonetheless, an appealing assurance about it. There is never a moment of doubt in his films about who is going to come out on top. He hardly ever gets hit, and he never allows himself to get in over his head.
This is doubly significant because unlike others of his ilk, Mr. Bond, for instance, or Jackie Chan, there is little evidence of humor or parody in his character. He’s simply a man on a mission, as he is here in one of his lesser works, "Marked for Death," and he accomplishes his objectives with a minimum of fuss and bother (but always with a maximum body count).
It would be another two years before Seagal made his landmark film, "Under Siege," and another half dozen years before he stopped wearing his shirts tucked in. For fans of action movies, this one may just be average, but it still maintains a respectable level of interest if only by virtue of its topnotch image quality and sonics.
Seagal always plays Seagal, of course, but this time he’s John Hatcher, a DEA agent who is burned out on death and the futility of trying to stop drug trafficking. Fed up, he decides to retire, moves back to his home town, a quiet Chicago suburb, and joins his family and friends in the hope of finding peace and quiet. Naturally, he doesn’t. He finds Jamaican drug gangs moving into his old neighborhood, and he has to stop them. Well, it takes him about half the film to make up his mind, after he and his family are marked for death, but once in action he’s a one-man, kung-fu army. With the help of a Jamaican cop and an old buddy, he goes to war against the villainous Screwface and his formidable posse, following the bad guys all the way to Jamaica and back. He finds some dead ends along the way, but nothing stops him once he makes up his mind.
What’s more, in the tradition of all action movies (I think it’s in the contract), the evil doers never just kill our hero; they always leave him to an expected fate worse than death, from which he invariably escapes. Like Seagal gets crushed into a car, which the gangsters then light on fire. Don’t just shoot him! And then there is the mandatory "Bullet"-like car chase and the occasional Bond-like quips. Predictable fluff.
By John J. Puccio. Submitted by Amos.