Half Past Dead Review
Posted by Chris McCarver on 11.18.2002
In yet another attempt to salvage Steven Seagal's big-screen value, B-grade actor/director Don Michael Paul ("Robot Wars") directs the '90s martial arts icon along with rap star Ja Rule...
Half Past Dead
Release Date: November 15th, 2002
In yet another attempt to salvage Steven Seagal's big-screen value, B-grade actor/director Don Michael Paul ("Robot Wars") directs the '90s martial arts icon along with rap star Ja Rule in this tale of terrorists vs. inmates set in a futuristic remodeling of the Alcatraz Island penitentiary.
And the biggest surprise? It's actually entertaining.
Seagal plays Sascha Petrosevitch, seemingly a hired gun for a powerful crimeboss but in reality a deep-cover FBI agent. Ja Rule is Nick Frazier, one of the boss' head operators who Sascha befriends in order to get a heap of evidence to take their employer down. A chop-shop run by Nicholas is then besieged by FBI agent Ellen Williams ("Babylon 5"'s Claudia Christian), the raid landing Sascha and Nick as inmates in the recently refurbished Alcatraz. Sascha, of course, is there to maintain his cover and rekindle his friendship with Nick to obtain more evidence against his boss.
The point becomes moot when a squad of mercenaries led by a disgruntled Gulf War vet turned government paper pusher (Morris Chestnut) and a lethal femme fatale (Nia Peeples) breaks into the prison. Their objective is to wrangle the location of a secret stash of gold bullion from the condemned prisoner (Bruce Weitz) who engineered the heist. Using those who came to witness the execution as hostages, the mercs attempt to make good their escape, but Sascha and Nick lead a cellblock worth of fellow inmates in an attempt to free the prison and secure the safety of the hostages.
As I said before, this film was actually a nice little action flick, and if Seagal's starring, you have to realize that means that this film broke from the tired rebellious antihero that he's all too well known for. The film actually made ample use of each member of the cast, thus making the film less an attempt to show us Seagal's badass quotient and actually tell an interesting story. That isn't to say that the movie succeeded in spite of Seagal, his performance as Sascha allowed him to show a decent range of emotions for someone who's usually known for simply looking like a guy who could kill you with a mean glare. The rest of the characters were all fully fleshed out, from the at-peace-with-himself Weitz and the hardened yet fair-minded Tony Plana as the prison's warden to the lovable thug Ja Rule and Christian's far-from-frazzled Agent Williams. Ja Rule injects a nice amount of street humor as does fellow rapper Kurupt, who does a hilarious turn as a frenetic inmate. There are even a couple of notable cameos, one by comedienne Mo'nique (TV's "The Parkers") and the other by TV producer extraordinaire Stephen J. Cannell ("The A-Team," "Renegade").
The movie's not without its flaws, however. The film's loaded with a wide variety of action sequences that at best are a lot of fun to watch, but unfortunately at worst leapfrog over the believability threshold by leaps and bounds. This movie also labors under the misconception that Chow Yun Fat-caliber gun-monkeys are something of a prolific nature, as practically every character that picks up a piece in this movie totes his or her firepower like a dyed-in-the-wool Navy SEAL. And while Nia Peeples' portrayal of the mercenaries' second-in-command allowed her to showcase her action-heroine stylings, she otherwise came off as simply an evil twin sister of Carrie Anne Moss' "Matrix" character.
The 411: I'll admit to not having been a Seagal fan prior to this movie, and "Half Past Dead" didn't make me a total believer. But it showed that there's more to Seagal than aikido-tossing Random Mook #27 into walls and looking perpetually PO'd (or constipated, take your pick). "Half Past Dead" is a better-than-average addition to the annals of American action cinema, and, while it likely is ripe for panning by the cinematic elite, it's still a fun night at the theater and worth taking a look at if you're in the mood to be entertained with a solid story, smart dialogue, and lots of things and people getting shot and blown up.
