Half Past Dead
Review by Clint Morris
 Steven
Seagal’s career has gone from bad to good and back to
bad again in recent times.
His reputed comeback in the Joel Silver-produced Exit
Wounds may have earned the former pony-tailed performer
his first theatrical release in some years – but it didn’t
lead to the roles and follow-up blockbusters the ominous idol
had hoped for.
Instead, he was soon back in ‘direct to video’
land, headlining such forgettable fare as Ticker and,
more recently, The Foreigner.
Now, he’s struck propitious again – if you’d
call it that - starring in the costly action effort Half
Past Dead, more or less a direct rip-off of his own Under
Siege or even more noticeably, The Rock (1996)
– with this film once again intended for the teeming
cinema stadium.
It may find it’s place on the widescreen mesh –
but it won’t be staying there long...
Clichéd, anachronistic and violent for violent’s
sake, Dead features Seagal as Sascha Petrosevitch,
an undercover agent who eats lead and is announced dead for
a good 22 minutes.
Medics restart Sascha and he resumes his deep cover, now
as an inmate on newly opened Alcatraz Island. He hopes to
finish the job he started by being enslaved alongside friend,
Nick (Ja Rule), and gaining fundamental grime on a crime boss.
Predictably, a band of terrorists come crashing into the
island paradise, hoping to find out the whereabouts of $200
million in gold from one of the inmates. Who’s going
to save the day? One guess: he’s the one whose haircut
looks somewhat like Travolta’s in Swordfish.
As much as I’d have loved to enjoy Half past Dead
for what it is – a mindless, but chirpy action thriller,
and I can do that usually – for the most part, I didn’t.
When most action films – including Seagal’s trademark
Under Siege – relied on grand action and mind-blowing
stunts to haul in the viewer, Dead doesn’t seem
to be even trying. For all intents and purposes, it’s
ripped off the whole ‘terrorists on Alcatraz’ stratagem
from The Rock as well as several plot points from the
latter film.
Even it’s dialogue, characters and structure reads like
a ‘101 ways to make a cliché action picture’.
While Seagal is his usual self, he can be endurable, heavy
Morris Chesnut is derisory, if only because the same actor
was last seen playing Seagal’s naive sidekick in Under
Seige 2. Someone fire that casting director for placing
the same man in implausible terrain. Rapper Ja Rule has some
memorable moments though – though even they are fleeting.
If it’s another regurgitated action movie you’re
after, there’s no better film than Half Past Dead.
If it’s imminent hope that one-time cinema champ, Seagal,
might one day make a return to Under Siege-style action
thrillers – buy a ticket for anything but...
2.5 out of 5
Half Past Dead
Australian release: Thursday February 20
Cast: Steven Seagal, Morris Chesnut, Ja Rule, Nia Peeples,
Linda Thorson, Bruce Weitz, Claudia Christian.
Director: Don Michael Paul.
Website: Click
here
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