Action Packed Flashback – Marked for Death

The popularity that continues to this day of Steven Seagal can be directly pointed at and summed up on his first four films. Usually playing cold, calculating tough guys that disobey their superiors to get the job or justice done, Seagal’s films were perfectly paced bone-snapping action films, that within these first few films established him as an action star along the sides of Sly Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who dominated the box office at that time in the early 1990s. Also of note, is that these films were related by their three word titles, something of which inspired this retrospective’s name.

Directed by Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers helmer Dwight H. Little in 1990, Marked for Death is our next Action Packed Flashback, as Killer Film chats with screenwriter Michael Grais, who was then coming off of the horror hit franchise in Poltergeist and Poltergeist II.

Seagel’s first two films were set up at Warner Bros., but for Marked for Death, the production was switched to 20th Century Fox. “I went to Steven after seeing his Above the Law (1988) with the idea for Marked For Death. His contract expired at Warners and there was a window for our film, which was pure luck,” remembers Michael Grais. The film was original to be called Screwface, the name of the Jamaican villain played by Basil Wallace. Keeping in tune with his prior two films, the title was changed to Marked for Death, which helped Fox’s marketing team. As quoted from the trailer: “In Above the Law, he got tough; In Hard to Kill, he got even; Now the man with the short fuse is… Marked For Death.” Michael Grais remarks about this change: “The script I wrote was titled Screwface, which is a Jamaican term for bad guy. The studio changed the title. Steven had some say over the direction of the script/film, but not a lot. I’d say the normal amount any star has.”

“You f*ck with my family, you die.” – John Hatcher

Chicago DEA agent John Hatcher (Seagal) has just returned from Colombia, where his partner Chico was killed in a confrontation with drug dealers, and John killed the dealers who killed Chico. As a result of Chico’s death, John has decided to retire. One night, John and his friend Max (Keith David), a local high school football team’s head coach, go to a bar. A gun fight breaks out between local drug dealers and a Jamaican gang called the Jamaican Posse, whose leader is a drug kingpin known as Screwface (Wallace). Hatcher arrests one of Screwface’s henchmen as the gunfight ends.

The next day, Screwface and some of his henchmen get revenge by shooting up the house that John, his sister Melissa, and Melissa’s 12-year-old daughter Tracy (Danielle Harris) live in. Tracy gets shot and is hospitalized in critical condition. And then, Seagal gets to do what he’s noted for. Aided by the under-appreciated direction of Dwight H. Little (who would go onto to direct Rapid Fire with the then-unknown Brandon Lee the following year), the film is widely and arguably considered Seagal’s best, thanks to these sharp, brutal fight/action scenes. “Steven thought Dwight was good and wanted to work with him. My partner at the time and I met with him and liked him very much,” recalls Grais, who besides writing the screenplay, was also one of the film’s producers. “The studio agreed. He was in. He should be an A-list director and I don’t know why he isn’t. He was able to handle not only the artistic aspects of the film but also the political aspects between Seagal’s desires, ours, and the studios.”

The film is also noted for its secondary cast with Keith David (Requiem for a Dream), Danny Trejo (Machete), and Danielle Harris (Rob Zombie’s Halloween, Stake Land). “I had met Danny years before personally and he had only had a very small role (non-speaking) in another film before I brought him onto this one. Keith David was another actor who was underrated and someone I wanted to work with and so he was brought on as well,” recalls Grais on the casting process. “I can’t remember how Danielle got the gig, but I would assume she came in and auditioned as did everyone else.” It probably also helped that she was reunited with her Halloween 4 director.

“I have a message for you from Tito. He say for you to meet him… in HELL!” – Screwface

But the real casting star of the film had to be Basil Wallace as Screwface, the Jamaican drug lord. “The Bob Marley song? I had never heard when I wrote the screenplay! I’ve still never heard it. The character was a complete fiction and had nothing to do with anything besides my warped imagination!” laughs Grais as he explains the rumor that the character was named after the aforementioned Bob Marley song. “Basil Wallace got the job after a casting session — and why he hasn’t become a major star I have no idea! He was amazing in my opinion.” It’s no secret that this is perhaps the scariest, and/or darkest of all the Steven Seagal films and that’s credited to Grais previous work on Poltergeist for Steven Spielberg and Seagal’s studies in Obeah, a West Indian term for the  black magic rituals he used for the film. The ending is notable too for what seems like Screwface is a boogieman since he reappears after Seagal decapitates him. It’s later to be found that it was his twin brother.

The film opened October 5th, 1990 and eventually grossed $46 million domestically, proving Seagal was no fluke, as it gave him his third straight box office success. “We were his third film,” explains Grais as he begins canonizing Seagal and his popularity in the early 1990s. “I think Above the Law was fantastic, but Hard to Kill was just okay. [Still] Above the Law made me want to work with him badly. After those he started having more control over material and casting etc. etc., and that didn’t serve him very well. Those films suffered from his involvement as a producer/star. He went from nowhere to an A-list star to a B-actor in a very short period of time. How many actors can you remember who headlined in their first film? He did that and it was through talent and will power. He was, at that time, truly charismatic.”

Critics were mixed, but fans wanted more. Seagal followed Marked for Death with a return to Warner Bros. in his last three worded title in Out for Justice, and exclamation point to his tough guy cop persona, and Under Siege, perhaps his biggest hit ever.

Until the next flashback…