Half Past Dead on Arrival
Half Past Dead on ArrivalHalf Past Dead proves yet again that a team of highly skilled, meticulously trained terrorists equipped with the latest, state-of-the-art weaponry and high-tech gadgetry can take over any maximum-security facility in minutes. But when the time comes to hit a slow-moving, overweight white man who used to be an action star a decade ago ... fuhgetaboutit!
The first question I have is: "What the hell is wrong with Steven Seagal when he runs?" Have you ever seen this man break into a sprint? He looks like some weird, bird-like creature who has something icky on his hands.
The second question I have is: "Whose idea was it to put him in a doo rag for nearly the entire film?"
Third question, and this is just an internal question: "Did I really just see a big-budget Hollywood action movie with a cast that includes Nia Peeples, Bruce Weitz, and Stephen J. Cannell?" I kid you not. Stephen J. Cannell, creator and producer of such hits as The A-Team and Riptide, has a major role in this film! He is the goateed goofball who at the end of each of his shows would be seen typing maniacally at his typewriter, then would rip the paper out and fling it into the air. I have always hated this man.
Final question: "Am I dreaming or has someone actually titled their movie Half Past Dead? Did they not know that this would be fodder for film critics and headline writers worldwide?!"
Half Past Dead is one of the most ridiculous pieces of action garbage I have ever had the displeasure of holding my nose to for 90 minutes. Seagal stars as Sascha, an undercover FBI agent who is assigned to infiltrate "New Alcatraz" prison in San Francisco Bay and buddy up to inmate Nick Frazier (played by the rapper Ja Rule, who makes Ice T look like Sidney Poitier by comparison). Oh, yeah. That's right. They've reopened Alcatraz! No longer is it a tourist trap for Bay Area visitors, where you can buy such trinkets as a T-shirt that reads "My parents dropped the soap at Alcatraz prison and all they brought me back was this lousy T-shirt."
On the same night Sascha is put into the island jail, another inmate is set to be executed. This guy, played by Weitz of Hill Street Blues fame, knows the whereabouts of $200 million in gold bars. But he is taking that secret to his grave. So, of course, a strike team of rifle-toting, infrared-equipped mercenaries storms the prison, kills all of the guards, takes hostage the warden and a Supreme Court justice, and demands to know where the loot is. The villains are led by the very chatty Morris Chestnut and the Carrie Anne Moss-wannabe Nia Peeples, whose one character trait (and I'm not kidding) is that she wears neon blue eye shadow.
Half Past Dead was a pummeling experience. The film is directed by Don Michael Paul or Paul Michael Don or Michael Don Paul. Ugh. Whatever. From the productions notes, this Paul guy appears to be a failed TV actor and Cannell disciple whose past credits include directing episodes of Renegade, Pacific Blue, and Silk Stalkings. Paul's handling of the material here only proves my one golden rule: never trust a man with three first names. How can you put Steven Seagal in an action film and NOT have him do his martial arts?! The former star of Under Siege and Above the Law (two lean, well-crafted action flicks) has maybe about three minutes worth of decent fight time in the whole film. The bulk of the action in Half Past Dead is an endless series of ho-hum gun battles in which the various participants discharge thousands of rounds of ammunition, but only hit people unimportant to the plot.
Ja Rule DESPERATELY needed shooting in this film.
When the fistfights do come, they are strangely bloodless in order to maintain a shocking PG-13 rating. Seriously, there is such little blood for the amount of gunplay and fisticuffs on display here that the film becomes unintentionally ludicrous. That's to say nothing of Paul's fetish for shattering glass. The Nazis didn't break as many windows bombing London during World War II as Paul and his stunt crew do in this film.
I can't think of one single good thing to say about Half Past Dead. I'm at a total loss. I haven't even gone into how ridiculously inept the script sets up the main heist. It's a good half-hour into the film before all of the players are in place and the audience is let in on exactly what is going on. Even worse, Seagal is actually in the prison on a completely different mission that is NEVER adequately resolved onscreen! He is there not to thwart a prison takeover plot, but to get information on a Russian mobster who killed his wife years earlier.
I have to stop now. I'm still a little delirious both from the movie's punishing rap and thrash metal soundtrack and from the amount of times I rolled my eyes while watching what was unfolding on screen. A few years ago, Nic Cage and Sean Connery starred in an over-the-top action spectacle set at Alcatraz that was called The Rock. Half Past Dead should have been titled The Pebble.
Half Past Dead is rated PG-13 for violence and language.
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