Cast:
Steven Seagal (FBI Agent Sasha Petrosevitch), Morris Chestnut (Donny Johnson "49er One"), Ja Rule (Nick Frazier), Nia Peeples ("49er Six"), Tony Plana (Warden Juan Ruiz "El Fuego" Escarzaga), Kurupt (Bernard "Twitch"), Michael "Bear" Taliferro (Joe "Little Joe"), Claudia Christian (FBI Special Agent Ellen Williams), Linda Thorson (Judge Jane McPherson), Bruce Weitz (Lester McKenna), Michael McGrady (Guard Damon J. Kestner), Richard Bremmer (Sonny Eckvall), Hannes Jaenicke (FBI Agent Hartmann), with Mo'Nique (Twitch's Girl), and Stephen J. Cannell (Frank Hubbard) Written and Directed by Don Michael Paul.
Review:
You might know that Steven Seagal was a star at one point in time. Above the Law (1988) utilized him to his strengths in, well, kicking the crap out of people, even if he already had ideas of being a filmmaker too. His fifth film as a star in Under Siege (1992) was probably his peak, mainly because he was surrounded by people who looked like they wanted to be there for what could've easily been just "Die Hard on a boat". He finally made his presence known as a director (a bad one) with On Deadly Ground (1994), a movie that was beyond absurd in its environmental message in the face of having so many bodies all around the place. He then did a sequel to Under Siege in 1995 before having one noted supporting role in a movie with Executive Decision (1996) before starting to get into doing direct-to-video work such as The Patriot (1998) or stuff that didn't even get a US theatrical release such as Ticker (2001). Exit Wounds (2001) paired him with DMX in what was thought to be a "comeback movie", although it was this last venture with Warner Bros. At the end of all of this is Half Past Dead (2002), the 11th and final theatrical movie with Seagal as the key star, and it is the only one that was rated PG-13. No, seriously. He has made one theatrical movie in America since* this film with Machete (2010). Half Past Dead was directed by a first-timer in Don Michael Paul. The actor-turned-director/writer wrote the script for the film, which was his first theatrical script since Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991). He would go on to such vaunted works as Who's Your Caddy? (2007) to go along with a litany of movies for the video market (Jarhead 2, three Tremors sequels, Kindergarten Cop 2). Half Past Dead was not a hit with audiences even with just a budget of $25 million. Two years later, Seagal added music to his "forte" with an album of music that had "pop, world, country, and blues music" in it. The less said about his ties to other countries, the better.
There is plenty of satisfaction to be had here. No, not as a good movie, I mean the satisfaction of seeing a bloated, lazy, arrogant Steven Seagal fall off the lowest bar possible when it comes to "action star", complete with barely even having a close-up of Seagal. This is delightfully pathetic, managing to evoke a sense of feeling like a ripoff of any action movie that just pops up in your head. To add on to this, apparently, some unused aerial shots from The Rock actually does show up in the movie. Being painfully generic is one thing, being painfully generic with a star having the charisma of a rotted potato is another. There is absolutely nothing to Seagal in this film to latch on for interest, unless you count him wearing a durag for, um, some reason. The near-death experience the character suffers at the opening doesn't really come into play, honestly, because Seagal just drifts through scenes with the same blank expression. It isn't a story of revenge or even a story of finding one's place after suffering trauma, nah, it is just a guy who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time that is totally not a regurgitation of Die Hard and The Rock (did I mention the movie is set with a restored Alcatraz? It goes right up with a plot about a guy wanting to get the secrets of a doomed man of where he buried valuable gold). His fight scenes seem more like the work of creative cutting with stunt doubles than an actual physical presence. Chuck Norris in his fifties probably had more fitness than Seagal, so where's that excuse? Chestnut seems mildly invested in getting to play a villain in it for the paycheck that probably isn't too different from an actor in it for the paycheck, which is a nice thing to say in a movie where Peeples and her getup of leather (someone watch The Matrix or certain magazines, hmm?) and eyeshadow probably serves as the one attraction worth watching for the whole movie in terms of curiosity. Ja Rule appeared in a handful of movies in the 2000s that probably were fun to do (Assault on Precinct 13 [2005], for example) alongside having a rap career. In that regard, being in this film to try and play buddy with Seagal (a'ight is said a handful of times to make that clear) is not nearly as embarrassing as being the future co-founder of the doomed Fyre Festival, to put it mildly. Stephen J. Cannell appeared in one film as an actor when not doing work on TV, and it was this one. Your guess is as good as mine. By the time the movie ends its pursuit of, uh, retribution and gold, you will have learned that a "generic" action movie can be a blessing when compared to bad action movies like this. As a whole, Seagal was reaching his fifties when doing stuff like this and it shows pretty clearly for a movie that is too bloated, too under-cooked and too tired out to be anything other than a piece of crap fit for laughter.
Overall, I give it 4 out of 10 stars.
Bring on the sixth year of bad movies to celebrate Thanksgiving Week, hell yea. Next one up: The Nutcracker in 3D (2010).
*On a probably unrelated note, the following year after Half Past Dead, Segal had to take the stand because a bunch of mobsters from the Gambino crime family were brought in by one Julius R. Nasso to try and threaten Seagal after the dissolving of their partnership.
*For whatever reason, someone actually transcribed the dialogue of the film into text form here: Half Past Dead Script - transcript from the screenplay and/or Steven Seagal movie
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