Marked for Death

Marked for Death is a 1990 American action film directed by Dwight H. Little. The film stars Steven Seagal as John Hatcher, a former DEA troubleshooter who returns to his Illinois hometown to find it taken over by a posse of vicious Jamaican drug dealers led by Screwface. Using a combination of fear and Obeah, a Jamaican syncretic religion of West African and Caribbean origin similar to Haitian vodou and Santería, Screwface rules the drug trade in Lincoln Heights. Plot John Hatcher and his partner pursue Hector on foot. Later, at a drug deal, Hector is revealed to have blown John's cover and his partner is killed. He returns home and demands a vacation. He visits his friend Max Keller, who is disturbed to see Jamaican drug dealers, known as Posse, hanging around the school where he works. Later at a bar, they see the dealers again, and a gunfight breaks out. John manages to assist in arresting one of the Jamaicans and a responding FBI agent asks him to join the case; he refuses. At the scene, a detective finds a symbol which an expert named Leslie reveals to be a religious icon to mark the crimes of a man called Screwface. Screwface sends some men to do a drive-by at John's sister's house (where he is staying); they wound his niece Melissa. John interrogates a gangster he saw in the club shootout called Jimmy Fingers, but he refuses to help and John is forced to kill him. One of Screwface's men, who is Jimmy's accomplice, arrives and only gives a small clue on Screwface before defenestrating. Upon returning to his sister's house, John finds the same symbol on a rug along with a cow tongue and black cross nailed to the door. Leslie informs him that such symbols mark the person for death. John demands that the FBI provide protection for his family.