The film that ended Steven Seagal’s career at the top…
Directed by: Don Michael Paul Starring: Steven Seagal, Ja Rule, Morris Chestnut, Tony Plana, Kurupt, Nia Peeples, Claudia Christian, Linda Thorson, Bruce Weitz
There is an old saying that tells us to ‘not judge a book by its cover’. This saying could also apply to not judging a film by its title, and for people first hearing of a film titled Half Past Dead, the title may not instil much hope of them expecting to see a movie containing an interesting plot, well-written characters and dialogue and a thought-provoking message running throughout. To those people, you were right to be wary of ‘Half Past Dead. If you are expecting a dumb, forgettable action film, a dumb, forgettable action film is what you are given.
This film is not like the dumb action films made by the likes of Stallone and Schawrzenegger in the ‘80’s and 90’s that were hugely entertaining despite potentially lacking in overall quality, this dumb action film is likely to have viewers tuning out within seconds of the film beginning.
Half Past Dead was released in November 2002 and was written and directed by newcomer Don Michael Paul in his directorial debut. Paul is also responsible for writing ‘cinematic classics’ Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and Who’s Your Caddy?. The film starred 90’s action star Steven Seagal (Under Siege, Executive Decision) in his last theatrically released film for eight years while he invested in the direct-to-DVD action market.
Seagal plays Sasha Petrosevich, an FBI agent working undercover for a San Francisco crime boss. During an FBI raid, Sasha is shot while protecting criminal Nick Frazier (rapper Ja Rule) and is declared clinically dead (or ‘half past dead’) for a short period of time. Sasha and Nick are soon incarcerated inside the newly re-opened New Alcatraz. One night, a group of terrorists led by Donny Johnson (Morris Chestnut, Boyz N The Hood) break into the prison searching for soon-to-be executed death row inmate Lester McKenna (Bruce Weitz), a man who knows the location of a stash of gold bars worth millions of dollars.
In exchange for Mckenna, Johnson and his group take Supreme Court Justice Jane McPherson (Linda Thorson) as a hostage, who was at the prison to witness McKenna’s execution. It is now up to Sasha to save the judge and stop the terrorists before time runs out, all while keeping his true identity secret from Nick.
To sum up, Half Past Dead is a stupid film with a stupid title. The film is an incoherent mess containing a ridiculous plot riddled with clichés, including a villain with unclear motives for his actions. All this is presented through terrible, often unnecessary excuses for editing. The characters barely reach past one dimension and are stuck with reciting boring dialogue which only serves to make the film reach its 98 minute runtime. Seagal delivers an uninspired performance and it is clear that his best days were behind him at this point. The rest of the characters aren’t interesting enough to even mention. The only cast member to deliver a half-decent performance in this rubbish is Ja Rule, who I believed actually cared about his role in this film instead of the paycheque waiting for him once filming had wrapped.
The film was unsuccessful both commercially and critically, grossing $19 million against a $25 million budget. I’d say that the film was unfortunate in that it was released in the same week as Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Birds of a feather if there ever were. The film opened at no.5 at the US box office, grossing $7.8 million behind the opening weekend gross of HPatCoS’s $88 million followed by 8 Mile’s second weekend ($19.3 million), the third weekend of The Santa Claus 2 ($15.1 million) and The Ring’s fifth weekend ($10.6 million).
The film spent two weeks in the top 10 before dropping out, remaining in cinemas until Valentine’s Day 2003. Even worse, the film only spent a single weekend in UK cinemas, grossing $73,297 from 73 cinemas before quickly disappearing. Along with this, the film was critically panned, earning a 3% consensus rating on Rotten Tomatoes (from 87 reviews) and a 23 from Metacritic (23 reviews). Despite this, the film did receive a direct-to-DVD sequel, Half Past Dead 2, released in 2007. Seagal would be replaced by wrestler Bill Goldberg, who starred alongside returning supporting cast member Kurupt (Twitch), the only points of interest to come from this sequel.
Do this film deserve to be forgotten? For a generic action film like this, it most certainly does. See you in eight years Steven.
forgotten-media.com 