Marked For Death [1991] [DVD]

I'm a big fan of Steven Seagal, so much so that I have every film he as released to date across multiple formats, but even the most ardent of fans surely cannot deny the considerable drop in the quality of his output.There has been a gradual decline in production values from more or less his first few films, there have been the ocassional glimmers of hope offered but these are very much few and far between unfortunately.This film, 'Marked for Death', is generally considered to be one of his very best outings, released in 1990 it was an early hit but further established him as one of the leading action stars following 'Nico/Above the Law'  Above the Law [Blu-ray] [2009] [US Import ],  Nico - Above The Law [Blu-ray][Region Free ] and 'Hard to Kill'  Hard to Kill [Blu-ray] [1990] [US Import ].The film has a pretty standard storyline for this genre, but it has a pretty strong cast and a particularly memorable villian in 'Screwface'; the fight scenes are some of the very best from Seagal's career and the film is both tightly scripted and directed, with a couple of classic one liners eg. "One thought he was invincible, the other thought he cold fly............ they were both wrong"!I won't take the time here to provide a synopsis of the storyline, I can imagine that there are few purchasing this Blu-ray who have not seen the film at some point, I will instead concentrate on the reasons as to why someone who may already own this film on DVD should re-invest in this high definition version from America.Ok, first things first, this Blu-ray disc is REGION FREE.Secondly the disc casing whilst having the same general dimensions as UK versions is the thinner American type, measuring 10mm thick (rather than 15mm), I only mention this because it may bother some, personally I think I actually prefer them!The running time of the feature is 93 minutes, the UK DVD release is 89 minutes, and therein lies the first advantage of this version, it is UNCUT.Just about all of the Region 2 DVD releases of Steven Seagal's early films (ie. the best ones!) have been heavilly censored; I actually first became aware of this several years a go when I purchased the Region 1 DVD version of 'On Deadly Ground', this much maligned film certainly has its faults but I simply could not believe just how much better the longer uncut version was.And so it is also the case here.The main difference is that the scenes of violence are generally just that little longer, the camera shots linger just that second or two more when a limb has been broken for instance, but trust me when I say that it makes a huge difference. With my Region 2 DVD version I have always found the fight scenes in this film to be badly edited with them appearing clearly cut, always changing to another angle as the actual trauma occurs, in this version they flow much more realistically and the breaks that Steven Seagal applies to the various villians limbs are far more gratuitous with the camera lingering on the shot for that few seconds longer, this version of 'Marked for Death' feels like a quite different film and the violence at times is graphic.The film has many additions to the fight scenes, in fact just about every violent encounter has additional footage, and although there are no major alterations to the actual story, what changes there are do add up to it being very different to the UK version.With regards to the audio and visual improvements, they are superb.This Blu-ray release of 'Marked for Death' delivers everything and more that you could hope for from a 1080p High Definition transfer of a film that is now over twenty years old.I have played it side by side to my DVD version for comparison and the difference in clarity is that of 'night and day', the sharpness of the image on the surface textures is very impressive indeed, I would actually go so far as to say that it is the most impressive Blu-ray transfer of a back catalogue film that I have seen to date. The original DVD version was not of a particularly good quality, I was already aware of that, but when comparing it to this version I simply could not believe the difference; I have watched this film a fair few times of the years, probably 30+ when I think about it, and I would say that it almost felt like I was watching a different film, I simply could not believe the amount of detail and features that I had not previously noticed!The sound is also excellent, although it is not such a huge improvement as the picture, the upgrade to 5.1 DTS-HD from the DVD's Stereo is still very noticeable; despite these audio improvements I still have to use the subtitles to understand the villians (those familiar with this film will know what I mean!).With regards to the subtitles they are provided in just English and Spanish; the aforementioned audio track is provided in English 5.1 DTS-HD, English and French Dolby Surround and Spanish Mono.The disc is absolutely bare bones with the menu screen just offering 'Play', 'Set up' (audio & subtitles) and 'Scenes'.Overall I am really pleased with this Blu-ray; despite already owning the film on DVD (and VHS before that!) it has still proved to be a most worthwhile acquisition, with the added bonus of having additional footage that improves the film on top of the massively improved picture quality, thus making it a justifiable purchase for anyone regardless of whether they already own it on DVD or not.

As I have so far only given negative reviews on the Steven SEAGAL films I hate (only 2 reviews out 3 truly s**t films), I feel it is my duty to review a bloody great one. Now being a SEAGAL fan I do have my ultimate favourites, Above The Law, Hard To Kill, Out For Justice, Under Siege 1&2, The Glimmer Man and Exit Wounds. And I do really enjoy all the recent stuff. But my personal favourite is Marked For Death. What a film! Loads of violence, violent car chases, violent fights and well, just a violent film really but with the fantastic action to go with it. I love the fact it is a hard core action film and not just fancy martial arts. Yes it does have great martial arts fights but they are bone shattering and authentic. And the car chase, man its exciting.The story is nothing to get an academy award about but is nice and simple and gets straight down to what us SEAGAL fans want. SEAGAL is a cop who retires to save his own sanity and goes to seek peace with his family. Only to get involved in a Jamaican drug war and ends up a target from the leader, Screwface. SEAGAL sets the "KILL SWITCH" because his family are now "MARKED FOR DEATH". Anyway, his niece gets caught in the crossfire and shot. Q the revenge music and SEAGAL "OUT FOR A KILL" and now "DRIVEN TO KILL".. .SEAGAL goes after the Jamaican gang with the help of his old pal played by the excellent Keith DAVID and sets things straight dishing out loads of "LETHAL JUSTICE". The Jamaican baddies are like excitable miniature Predators running around with big long dredds and blades making threats to carve SEAGAL up. That's all they are though, threats to the big man. All this just makes SEAGAL even more angry and certainly puts the dredds " ON DEADLY GROUND"Things move on and SEAGAL tracks Screwface to Jamacia where some serious "URBAN WARFARE" takes place. SEAGAL is a very "DANGEROUS MAN" indeed as he becomes the "ANGEL OF DEATH" and a "DEADLY ASSASSIN" taking out the baddies with some serious fire power he managed to somehow get through customs!.It's "RENAGADE JUSTICE" all the way as SEAGAL continues his path of "VIOLENCE OF ACTION" in order to locate and deal with Screwface. Screwface, "TODAY YOU DIE"!. The fight at the end is a sword wheeling homicidal pleasure. I love it when we get to see SEAGAL doing s*** like this because he really does know how to use these sorts of weapons. Check out the great TV series he did, Steven Seagal: Lawman and you will know what I mean.Marked For Death is, in my opinion, SEAGAL at his best. All the action scenes are faultless, the pace of the film never let's up and the soundtrack is fantastic. It really is balls out pedal to the metal full throttle hard core action. Plug...check out the SEAGAL films I've mentioned in my review. Renagade Justice is a treat, believe me.