Marked for Death is a 1990 action film directed by Dwight H. Little. It stars Steven Seagal as John Hatcher, a former law enforcement agent. Upon moving back to his home town, Hatcher finds it taken over by a gang of vicious Jamaican drug dealers, led by Screwface (played by Basil Wallace). The film is the only Steven Seagal movie distributed by Twentieth Century Fox.
The film is widely considered by fans and critics alike to be one of Seagal's very best films, due to the fight scenes integrating heavy elements of aikido, as well as use of weapons and arm dislocations. Seagal supposedly studied Obeah (a west Indian term for black magic) rituals in depth to make the film.
Plot
Chicago DEA agent John Hatcher (Steven Seagal) has just returned from Colombia, where his partner Chico (Richard Delmonte) was killed in a confrontation with drug dealers, and John killed the dealers who killed Chico. As a result of Chico's death, John has decided to retire.
One night, John and his friend Max (Keith David), a local high school football team's head coach, go to a bar. A gun fight breaks out between local drug dealers and a Jamaican gang called the Jamaican Posse, whose leader is a drug kingpin known as Screwface. Hatcher battles a few from both sides, killing some of Screwface's henchmen, before the gunfight ends.
The next day, Screwface and some of his henchmen get revenge by shooting up the house that John, his sister Melissa (Elizabeth Gracen), and Melissa's 12-year-old daughter Tracy (Danielle Harris) live in, and Tracy gets shot. Tracy is hospitalized in critical condition.
Hatcher encounters a gangster named Jimmy Fingers (Tony DiBenedetto) and unsuccessfully tries to get him to tell him where Screwface might be and is forced to kill him. Another Jamaican named Nesta (Victor Romero Evans) arrives but Hatcher is able to sit him down but Nesta tells him to go after Screwface alone and jumps out the window to his death.
Hatcher comes out of retirement to join Max in a battle against Screwface, who later breaks into the Hatcher home and is about to kill Melissa, but Screwface leaves upon Hatcher's arrival. Hatcher now realizes that the only way to stop the Jamaican Posse is to bring down Screwface.
Teaming up with a Jamaican cop named Charles (Tom Wright), who has been trailing Screwface for years, Hatcher and Max head for Kingston, Jamaica to find Screwface, whom Hatcher decapitates after a brief swordfight.
Back in Chicago, Hatcher displays Screwface's severed head to the Jamaican Posse to get them to leave town. However, Screwface seems to return from the dead and kills Charles, causing the meeting to erupt into chaos. Max holds off the henchmen in a gunfight, while Hatcher gets into a swordfight with Screwface's Brother (the identical twin of Screwface. Strangely enough Screwface's Brother is his given name). Hatcher kills Screwface's Brother by gouging his eyes to blind him, breaking his back, followed by dropping him down an elevator shaft, in which he gets impaled upon landing. Despite his fury at living in his brother's shadow and being saddled with the humiliating name "Screwface's Brother" he proved a less than formidable adversary.
In the DVD "Directors Cut Revised Ending" the Jamaican gang berated Screwface's Brother when he attempted to seize control in the place of his twin brother. He was leaving the building after being forcefully expelled from the gang when he encountered Hatcher. His initial efforts to befriend Hatcher for killing his brother were rebuffed leading to the one-sided show down. Screwface is easily overpowered and wrestled to the ground in this version although Hatcher then elects to shoot his hysterical and groveling prisoner before the police arrive. Another notable change in this version Charles' was rendered comatose by foul water in Kingston and not injuries. During the course of his prolonged hospitalization he cultivated a long and stringy beard.
Main cast
Box office
Marked For Death was considered a box office success, earning a little more than $43 million domestically and $57 million worldwide.
Trivia
- The villain Screwface was appropriated from a Bob Marley song of the same name.
- A 1960 Pontiac Bonneville automobile is destroyed in the film.
- The actress who played Marta, Rita Verreos, later competed on the reality show Survivor Fiji.
- A sample from the film was used in a track entitled "Screwface" by the electronic musician Luke Vibert, under his two monikers, Amen Andrew and Spac Hand Luke, on the CD "Amen Andrews Vs Spac Hand Luke" released in 2006.
- The film is supposed to take place in Chicago and its suburbs. However, during some scenes palm trees and hills are visible due to the filming in Los Angeles.
- The man John meets at the cookout is played by Nick Corello, he and Seagal were in two other films together, the first was Hard to Kill released earlier in the year, and Out for Justice, released the following year.
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