Review: Marked For Death
- Mar 27, 2017
- 2 min read
Marked For Death brings to light something that may, upon further inspection, be very true. Steven Seagal is only as good as his supporting cast. Above The Law, no good actors to be seen, Under Siege, Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Busey and now, in Marked For Death, Seagal fights alongside Keith Richards, arguably one of the best 80's actors around. Hell, Richards even manages to get a smile out of the 6 foot Clint Eastwood impersonation that Seagal enjoys doing so much. But yeah, this one's alright.
John Hatcher (Seagal) retires from the DEA after his partner is killed in a drug bust gone wrong. The day after he retires he gets into a shootout against a gang of Jamaican drug dealers. And thus, as the name implies, they mark him for death. After a vicious drive-by that leaves his daughter grievously injured, Hatcher teams up with his old friend Max (Keith David) and begins to destroy the gang, one bullet at a time.
Marked for death is pretty damn entertaining to say the least. Between psychotic Jamaicans, Keith David and some stupendous action scenes, Seagal actually manages to do what he probably considers acting. While it's hardly Oscar worthy he's more than serviceable as a tough cop who take no nonsense and leaves a trail of corpses in his wake.
The plot, while nothing special, serves to move Hatcher from target to target and that's where the fun is. His enemies would die than talk to him and he's happy to oblige. There's a nice car chase followed by a shootout and a bit of bone crunching martial arts, an excellent military style assault and more. As far as the action is concerned, Marked For Death has no problems.
Maybe it's the brutal action, the spectacular finale or just Keith David being a badass but Marked For Death is a fine example of an 80's or 90's action movie done right. It's lean, it's mean and there's more than enough gratuitous violence to please any fan of the genre. Marked For Death isn't perfect but it's a damn good time all the same.
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