MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Marked for Death’ Excels, but Violently

As the credits unroll for the sleek, topical and extremely violent “Marked for Death” (citywide), we watch martial arts wizard Steven Seagal, playing an undercover trouble-shooter for the Drug Enforcement Agency, barely escaping with his life in a misfired South-of-the-border confrontation with some bad guys that costs his partner his life. By the credits’ finish we’re in Chicago, where Seagal, overcome by a sense of futility, has resigned his job, confessing to a priest that he’s “become what he most despises.”

After settling in at his family’s home in a prosperous Chicago suburb, he drops by his old high school to visit his coach (Keith David). Long before we spot the crack dealing going on at the side of the football field, we, of course, know that Seagal is going to have scant time “to try to find the tender side” of himself--that very shortly he and his relatives will be “marked for death.”

This handsome 20th Century Fox release is a smart piece of hard-action filmmaking. Writers Michael Grais and Mark Victor, who also produced the picture with Seagal, have not only tailored their slam-bang script to their star’s cool bravura persona but also have tapped a new set of villains, the Jamaican drug gangs, so called “posses,” that are infiltrating America’s illicit drug trade. (The writers are careful to point out the posses represent but a fraction of one percent of the Jamaican population.)

The Jamaican angle allows for the chief villain (a ferociously intense Basil Wallace) to draw upon the power of the magical rituals of the ancient African religion of Aba Qua and for lots of reggae music--Jimmy Cliff even appears on camera in performance--and some actual Kingston exteriors. Grais and Victor have also provided plenty of opportunities for some applause-drawing virtuoso action set pieces staged by stunt coordinator Conrad Palmisano. Dwight Little, whose last picture was “Halloween 4,” directed the entire film with terrific energy and flair.

No question about it, “Marked for Death” is exceedingly well-crafted in all aspects--even sections of L.A. are made to stand in for both Jamaica and Chicago seamlessly--but its literally bone-crunching brutality and copious bloodshed surely limits its appeal to hard-action fans. Indeed, you have to wonder if it would receive the new NC-17 rating where it coming up for review now instead of the usual R.