Marked for Death

"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.

The best thing about movies like this is that the supporting cast, in this case Keith David, does a better job than the lead. I mean, watching Steven is like watching a cardboard cutout do kung-fu. But... the baddies are over the top and over acted to perfection. The plot is basic, the violence is amped up, and the script sucks, there is ample T&A... in other words it's a fun action movie in the best possible way. And it's the kind of action movie that we don't see any more... and the kind that really should have been direct to video fun when it came out. It sucks, but it's entertaining and that's all you should really ask for.