“Hard to Kill” (1990) & “Marked For Death” (1990)
Yes, this double entry is a cheat, but we’re pairing these because, released the same year, on many levels, they’re companion pieces, like a pair of inseparable priceless Ming vases or a Twix. Apparently they’re also the two films that martial arts aficionados point to as the best examples of Seagal’s particular brand of Aikido. Now, we scarcely know Aikido from Bukkake, but it’s a discipline in which he has/had a great degree of credibility — he was the first westerner to run an Aikido dojo in Japan. The odd thing to the casual viewer is that Aikido is, so we discover, largely about “concern for the well-being of the attacker” and “becoming one with an aggressor’s movements so as to control them with minimal effort,” which doesn’t sound exactly cinematic, and is why, perhaps, in later films especially, Seagal manages to get away with moving very little, never nipping and jabbing where lumbering and hulking will do. Anyway, back in his heyday, his style was a bit more peppy, and that’s on display in both these films.
“Hard to Kill” is the better movie, for our money, because it wears its cheesiness up front with the whole coma plot: Seagal is, wait for it… a cop (!) called, wait again… Mason Storm, who awakens from a coma to find his family murdered, then teams up with world’s unlikeliest coma nurse, his then real-life wife Kelly Le Brock, to exact revenge on the perpetrators with whom, yes, he has a long personal history. Whatever about the Aikido, there’s lots of smashing plate glass and car chases, but most crucially for Film History, it marks the first appearance of the Seagal trademark ponytail. “Marked for Death” is the one with the Jamaican drug gang, sorry, posse, led by the crazy-eyed dread-locked Screwface (Basil Wallace), a sort of Voodoo, sorry Obeah, priest who targets Seagal (disappointingly named John Hatcher). Here the soapiness doesn’t arrive till later (the old twin brother twist), but prior to that there’s a lot of shooting, arm dislocations, ooh, and a decapitation, which is always a treat.
Honorable Mentions. Well, Mentions. Seagal’s recent return to the multiplex, after a long decade of direct-to-video, in “Machete” we deemed unfit for inclusion because it’s not really a Seagal movie per se — same goes for “Executive Decision” which actually stars Kurt Russell. Shame, though, because working off the warped baseline we are, these two are veritable masterpieces.
There was some enthusiasm for Seagal’s environmentalism diptych “On Deadly Ground” (also his sole directorial outing) and “Fire Down Below.” Not having seen the latter, and considering the former stinks to almighty high heaven, this writer chose not to include them. In fact, “The Patriot” also has some of those eco-themes, but we’ve totally forgotten it. Something about a virus?
And finally “The Glimmer Man,” Seagal’s attempt at a “Lethal Weapon“-esque buddy action movie with Keenan Ivory Wayans is not the absolute worst thing he’s ever done and it’s nice to see Seagal subtly send up some of the new-agey, alternative philosophies he’s been associated with. If you discover it on cable late one night, or on a 36-hour bus ride from Lima to La Paz, it will do until you fall asleep.
Apologies if we’ve missed you favorite. Feel free to show “concern for our well-being” by delivering us a smack-down in the comments.