Marked for Death

After killing a drug cartel who murdered his partner Chico during a mission in Colombia, DEA agent and decorated soldier John Hatcher retires and heads to his hometown of Lincoln Heights, in suburban Chicago. He visits his family, and later reunites with his old friend and former U.S. Army buddy Max Keller, who works at the local high school as a football coach and physical education teacher.

While the two friends celebrate at a nightclub, a gunfight breaks out between local drug dealers and a Jamaican gang at the venue. The gang, an unnamed Jamaican Posse, is led by a notorious drug lord named Screwface. John arrests one of Screwface's henchmen as the gunfight ends.

News of Posse crimes occurring in Chicago and across the United States spread as the Posse expands its operations and recruits more members. The next day, Screwface sends his henchmen to do a drive-by shooting on the house where John, his sister Melissa, and Melissa's 12-year-old daughter Tracey live. Tracey is injured and hospitalized in critical condition.

In the subsequent investigation, John encounters a gangster named Jimmy Fingers, whom he is forced to kill. A Jamaican gangster named Nesta arrives and is subdued by John, who asks about Screwface. Nesta tells him to go after Screwface alone and jumps out the window to his death. The next day, John discovers a strange symbol engraved on a carpet, and with the help of Jamaican voodoo and gang expert Leslie Davalos, a detective for the Chicago Police Department, learns that it is an African black magic ideogram symbolizing blood that is used to mark their crimes. John decides to come out of retirement to join Max in a battle against Screwface.

John makes a phone call to Melissa, which is cut short when Screwface and his men invade the Hatcher household. They leave upon John's arrival, and Melissa is unharmed. The next day, John and Max encounter another batch of Screwface's henchmen, resulting in a car chase. The chase ends in a high-end department store, wherein two henchmen are wounded and one is killed by John amidst the chaos of fleeing shoppers. Later, during a meeting with Leslie, she informs John that the only way to stop the Jamaican Posse is to bring down Screwface. That evening, Screwface ambushes John under the guise of a construction crew; he plants a Molotov cocktail in John's car. John barely escapes before the car explodes.

John and Max then team up with Charles, a Jamaican-born detective of the Chicago police who has been trailing Screwface for five years. They acquire weaponry from a local arms dealer, then, after modifying and testing their equipment, they head for Kingston, Jamaica. Upon arrival, Max and Charles ask people in the streets for information about Screwface; a Jamaican local presents them a photo of a woman who was formerly acquainted with Screwface and informs them of a nightclub that she visits regularly. John meets the woman in the nightclub, where she provides him details of Screwface such as her frequent hangouts with him, his drug business, and the address of his mansion, as well as the death of her sister by Screwface's hands. The woman also tells John a cryptic clue: the secret of Screwface's power is that he has two heads and four eyes.

By nightfall, John, Max, and Charles head for Screwface's mansion. Infiltrating the premises through a nearby plantation, John eliminates three henchmen on the estate's balcony with his silenced sniper rifle, plants a bomb at a nearby power station, and enters the inner grounds. While Max and Charles keep a lookout and observe the party in progress, John detonates the bomb, causing the party to erupt into chaos. With Max and Charles opening fire on the Posse gang, John enters the building and disposes of many henchmen. He makes his way to a sacrificial area, but gets captured by Screwface and his remaining henchmen. John breaks free and kills or wounds the henchmen before decapitating Screwface with his own sword.

Upon returning to Chicago, the trio display Screwface's severed head to the Chicago Posse to try to convince them to end their crimes and leave town. However, Charles is suddenly impaled by Screwface's twin brother, making the gang believe that Screwface has returned from the dead using voodoo. A gunfight breaks out wherein Max holds off the henchmen despite being shot in the leg while John dispatches more gang members before he engages Screwface's twin in a sword fight.[4] The fight moves upstairs to a nightclub owned by the twin. After a lengthy fight, John finally gets the upper-hand on the twin. He gouges his eyes out and breaks his spine before dropping him down an elevator shaft, impaling him in the process. As the surviving Posse members discover their boss' corpse, their fates remain ambiguous, although the death of the Screwface twins implies their arrest by law enforcement.

John carries Charles' body with Max limping next to him as they walk off into the early morning.

Steven Seagal had wanted to hire director Dwight Little for his second feature, Hard to Kill, but studio Warner Bros. vetoed his choice, and went with Bruce Malmuth instead. According to Little, Seagal had the option in his contract with Warner to do one film with another studio. Seagal chose to exercise that option and make his third film at 20th Century Fox, where he demanded that they hire Little for Marked for Death. "I got that job only because Steven insisted," said Little.[5] During production, the studio was pushing for more humor in the film, but Little and Seagal had made a pact to resist these attempts. Their template for the film was The French Connection.[5]

On the third day of shooting Marked for Death, Hard to Kill came out in theaters. Dwight Little: "It opened huge, and it stayed on top for a while. No one, including Steven, thought that was going to be success. But it was. Frankly, just based on his charisma and a couple of good action scenes. I was downtown shooting a scene for Marked for Death when suddenly I see all these limos and towncars coming to the set. They were all CAA-agents and producers, coming out of the woodwork to see the next big action guy. They all wanted to talk to him."[5]

Of Seagal's martial arts, Little said: "Steven is the only guy who does what he does in the movies, where you let your opponent's energy go past you. In that respect, he's totally unique. But it's not a forward, high kicking, punching thing. That's why I felt I needed action movie stuff, like car chases, gun fights, explosions and some old fashioned cop stuff. Because if we tried to string together a bunch of Steven's fights, they will quickly start to feel the same."[5]

A soundtrack containing hip hop, reggae, and R&B music was released on September 27, 1990 by Delicious Vinyl.

• Marked for Death at IMDb
• Marked for Death at Rotten Tomatoes