Reviewed by Johnny McNair

Fox Home Entertainment – 93 minutes – 1990 – Rated R – 1080p Widescreen 2.35:1 – DTS-HD Lossless 5.1 Audio Mix

Stallone and Schwarzenegger ruled the action hero genre in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but as they became more and more expensive to afford, Hollywood began looking for more reasonably priced action heroes to fill in the gaps. Jean-Claude Van Damme did his best but fizzled fast, and long with him another badass emerged named Seagal…Steven Seagal. No one knows where he came from, but he just seemed to appear out of nowhere in 1998’s Above the Law, which became a hit. Seagal declared himself the new action hero king and because he was skinny (uh…he was then), tall, and had a cool pony tail…audiences accepted it. With the exception of his best film, Under Siege, he always played the cop that kills first and asks questions later. His third film, 1990’s Marked for Death, follows this format to a T and is for the first time available on Blu-ray courtesy of the Fox.

THE MOVIE

The plot is as super simple, centering around a hard ass Chicago DEA named John Hatcher (Mr. Seagal) who is involved in a drug sting in Columbia that goes really bad and his partner is killed. Hatcher can’t deal with the pain and decides to quit the force and go back to his hometown to be with his family. Unfortunately his old neighborhood has now been taken over by a Jamaican drug posse that uses extreme violence (and of course voodoo) to control their turf. Hatcher ignores this until his own niece is seriously wounded in a drive-by meant to terminate him, and he drops the peace act to unleash a furious can of whip-ass to eliminate the gang.

Directed by Dwight H. Little (who also helmed Free Willly 2), Marked for Death throws every cliché and stereotype at you in a 93 minute time frame. The Jamaicans are made to look ruthless and evil with no remorse and look like a bunch of alien Predators when they are together. Seagal’s family is super white bread and innocent, and of course he has a black cop friend/sidekick played by character actor Keith David. As long as you can accept all this, and it would help if you’re a fan of Seagal, you can have a lot of fun with this movie.

The best thing about this film is that at least Seagal was skinny and it was somewhat believable that he can do those martial arts moves and no one could kick his ass. If you’ve seen Mr. Seagal lately you know this is no longer a reality, unless he falls on you. Oddly his follow-up to this film was 1991’s Out for Justice, (man Seagal loves those three word titles…Above the Law, Hard to Kill) where he basically plays the same character with a different name. Under Siege (a two word title…finally) is the one time where he gets it right, because yes it’s Die Hard on a boat, but it works for him and he should have stayed on this path and stop eating those belly popping late night snacks.

Whether or not this Blu-ray is for you is based upon whether or not you like Seagal, or if you just want to reminisce to time in the 90’s when action heroes were small on talk and big at popping caps in the bad guys. Seagal will never be an A-list action hero again, so no matter what his 90’s action films are major nostalgia. And for his next generation of fans, this guy seems to pump out a new straight to video bad action flick every month. Do you need the cash that bad Mr. Seagal?

VIDEO

Wow this film is twenty years old, but it actually doesn’t look that bad on Blu-ray with a 1080p image in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Colors look good, but flesh tones seems to be a little on the reddish side. Blacks are actually well balanced, most likely because of the film stock used that holds up with the transfer. Overall, the image quality won’t blow you away, but if all you have is an old DVD, it’s definitely a step up.

AUDIO

Fox provides a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that does the trick without the bells and whistles. Seagal’s muffled voice is acceptable, but when the Jamaican characters are saying their cliché lines you may have no clue what’s going on and may want to click on the subtitles. Action sounds such as gunfire, explosions and screeching cars are basic, but all the reggae music sounds great.

EXTRAS

Nada…Zilch…Zip. Shame on you Fox for not showing love to Mr. Seagal.

BOTTOM LINE

Like all Steven Seagal films, marked for Death is a guilty pleasure. This Blu-ray was is in no way Hi-def show off material, and falls into the basic catalog title slot. You’ll have fun just as long as you don’t take it seriously at all, and for those hardcore fans who want to upgrade their old Marked for Death DVD, this one is for you.

SCORES (out of 5):

The Movie:      2.5

Video:             3.0

Sound:             3.0

Extras:             0.0

Bottom Line:   2.5