Half Past Dead



Steven Seagal makes the transition from action hero to inaction hero with the "urban" action film Half Past Dead (2002). Sure, he's been putting on weight for a while, but he looks particularly bloated and pasty in this movie. Half Past Dead was also the last movie Seagal had that went to theaters. After this, Seagal has been relegated to straight-to-video hell, along with most of the other icons of 80's action cinema.

In Half Past Dead the bloated one plays Sasha, an undercover FBI agent who is sent to the newly reopened Alcatraz as a prisoner. There's a complicated back story about how he nearly died and his friendship with Nick (Ja Rule), but it doesn't amount to much. The gist is that an old prisoner is about to be put to death and a bunch of high tech thieves bust into the prison to kidnap the condemned and find out where he hid two hundred million in stolen gold. The thieves, who include Morris Chestnut (poor guy) and Nia Peeples, also take a Supreme Court Justice hostage.

The movie is full of ridiculous moments, most of which have to do with Seagal pretending to fit in with the supporting cast of rappers:


(Call him Steven "Puffy" Seagal)

... or with the filmmakers attempts to make the sedentary Seagal look like he's doing something. There are times when it looks like Seagal had a stunt double do some of his walking scenes. The ending, a mishmash of ridiculous stunts (Seagal jumps out of a helicopter), deus ex machina dramatics (the condemned prisoner blows himself up somehow, killing the bad guys), and unlikely survivals by the supporting cast. Nick in particular is apparently killed, but lives to have an ending credit conversation with his wife that was obviously patterned after the end credits of Exit Wounds (2001), which is kind of like patterning your luxury airliner after the Hindenburg. Claudia Christian also shows up as an FBI agent, sporting an awful New York accent in her first scene that's so bad you can almost see her try to keep from laughing.

Posted: Tue - November 4, 2003 at      

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