IDIOT REVIEWS

-- movie reviews from an idiot teenager --

RATING: R for violence and language

DIRECTOR: Dwight H. Little

CAST: Steven Seagal, Basil Wallace, Keith David, Tom Wright

IMDB RATING: 4.9/10

BOX OFFICE: $46 million domestically.  1990-1992 was the absolute height of Seagal's career, where he did Hard To Kill, this, and Under Siege.  Hard To Kill made 47 million, and Under Siege 83 million.  After that, the gross for Seagal dropped to 38 for On Deadly Ground, but jumped again to 50 for Under Siege 2, and he costarred in the 68 million hit Executive Decision, and he seemed on track box-office wise, but his next move (The Glimmer Man) dived to 20, and his next several were worse, ending with the 1998 film The Patriot (totally unrelated to the Mel Gibson movie) which bombed so badly in theaters I can't even find a record of how little it made.  He kind of recovered in 2001 with Exit Wounds, but his next theatrical film, Half Past Dead, barely hit 15 mil, and none of his subsequent films have even gotten theatrical releases.

Marked For Death

1990

* *

            Steven Seagal finds that his partner has been killed in the line of duty, and decides to retire.  However, he unintentionally becomes involved rather violently with a nasty Jamaican drug lord (Basil Wallace), and gets back into the force to take him down.

            I guess.  To be honest, I was so bored that I really wasn't paying that much attention.  There was almost nothing in the movie that surprised.  There certainly wasn't anything in the plot, or script, or direction, except maybe just how lame it was.  No one on the film is even trying, except for Wallce, who makes a pretty cool bad guy.  The writing and direction feel painfully of the "let's just get this over with" kind.  No one cares, no one even makes an effort.  I make more effort to get up early in the mornings than everyone else on this film combined - except for two people.  One, as I said, was Wallace.

            The other person to make the movie watchable is, of all people, Steven Seagal.

            There's a strnage thing about Seagal.  Most of his career, he played a slightly heavy-set, totally wooden guy with a stoned voice who walks around, spouting dumb vaguely philosophical monologues, then kicking a bunch of bad guys' butts.  However, at the beginning of his film career, he wasn't so bad.  He wasn't exactly Dustin Hoffman in the acting department - heck, he wasn't Arnold Schwarzenegger in the acting department - but he seemed like he was actually trying, and he was in better shape (especially in this film).  More importantly, he showed energy and, unbelievably, he actually had a little bit of charisma.  It sounds truly insane, but shockingly enough, in this film, he's actually charismatic, energetic (in a laid back way, of course, but nontheless...), in great shape, and genuinely fun to watch.  If he had retained those factors, his 90s career might not have taken such a nosedive.  He wasn't a great actor, but, like Arnold and Van Damme, he might have been fashioned into a rather effective one had things gone right. (the mid-90s fall of Van Damme was unrelated to his talent - it mostly had to do with drugs, under which he made a series of poor and obviously unwise decisions)

            Anyway, although the movie isn't particularly good or anything, it's at least watchable because Seagal is at his best (which is better than you'd think) and Wallace is a creepy bad guy, and director Dwight Little is at least competant (if utterly enexceptional) at this thing, even when sleepwalking through it.  Not recommended exactly, but if you like Seagal, and it's on TV, it's not too bad.