In several places Marked For Murder is almost painful to watch. The script writing is trite, boring, cliché-ridden, and predictable. Even rookie soap opera actors can manage to create an occasional memorable moment when handed such cruddy material, but not anyone in this cast. By the midpoint of this movie I'd decided it must not be the fault of the actors. The probability of so many horrible actors all managing to get cast in the same shoot seems so low that I can only conclude they were all told to play their roles the way they did. The shoddy sets and poor editing indicate this movie had inept crews at every level, so the actors may well have been given bad direction.
Nothing else is handled any better. A car chase ends in one of the worst movie crashes ever filmed when a car misses a bridge and flies out into the air over the gulch the bridge spans. For a moment after the car goes airborne the scene cuts to a head-on closeup of the terrified driver taking his hands off the wheel to cover his head. Might as well take his hands off the wheel, right? They can't do anything when the car's in the air anyway, right? Except while he's being terrified at flying through the air, you can clearly see the road behind the car through the rear window and can tell this reaction shot is filmed on the ground. Not only that, you can actually see another car on the road behind the car that's supposed to be in midair! Then there's another quick cut to where the car is going to impact. It should be appearing from the right, coming down while still traveling right to left at high speed. Instead, the car plops down from almost straight above the river, and for a few frames you can even see the crane cables that have just released to allow the car to drop.
The ONLY redeeming feature in Marked For Murder is a couple of topless scenes, but even those weren't enough to bring this movie's rating up as far as a 2. Marked For Murder is one of those rare examples of when a rating scale going to 10 is needed, so the 1 this movie earns properly distinguishes it from merely bad movies that might merit a 2 or 3.
Nothing else is handled any better. A car chase ends in one of the worst movie crashes ever filmed when a car misses a bridge and flies out into the air over the gulch the bridge spans. For a moment after the car goes airborne the scene cuts to a head-on closeup of the terrified driver taking his hands off the wheel to cover his head. Might as well take his hands off the wheel, right? They can't do anything when the car's in the air anyway, right? Except while he's being terrified at flying through the air, you can clearly see the road behind the car through the rear window and can tell this reaction shot is filmed on the ground. Not only that, you can actually see another car on the road behind the car that's supposed to be in midair! Then there's another quick cut to where the car is going to impact. It should be appearing from the right, coming down while still traveling right to left at high speed. Instead, the car plops down from almost straight above the river, and for a few frames you can even see the crane cables that have just released to allow the car to drop.
The ONLY redeeming feature in Marked For Murder is a couple of topless scenes, but even those weren't enough to bring this movie's rating up as far as a 2. Marked For Murder is one of those rare examples of when a rating scale going to 10 is needed, so the 1 this movie earns properly distinguishes it from merely bad movies that might merit a 2 or 3.