The tag line for “Half Past Dead” is “The good. ![]() Please see my Steven Seagal website for screencaps and audio clips as well as a full-length, TWOP-style, 7-page recap.Written and Directed by: Don Michael Paul It is not a return to the Golden Era of Seagal films, but with a 50-something action hero, I think it is all we can expect. There is a nice blend of fire fights and Seagal-style bone breaking. The bad guys are high-tech, heavily armored, Matrix-inspired operators and it is a joy to see Seagal kicking their ass, even though he does need some help from Ja Rule. We get a nice little fight as soon as Seagal sets foot on New Alcatraz (a cool idea), but it almost seems to me like the suspect, played in an underkey way by Ja Rule, got more fight-time than Seagal!įor reasons I won't get into here (see my recap for that) a group of armed men take over the Rock (sound familiar?) and Seagal gets into it, like we know he would. an undercover FBI agent who goes to prison to get closer to his suspect. In any case, this movie feels big and expensive, features some of the old Seagal magic and finally pulls Our Hero into the 21st century. To be sure, I love Seagal but with the ups and downs of his releases it is hard to remain a loyal fan, much less run a devoted website. Just when I had more or less given up on Seagal's new movies, along comes a surprisingly decent effort like Half Past Dead. Rating: film 3 stars extras 2 starsįU&D! Original Review - Half Past Dead - 3/4 guns The DVD includes audio commentary by the director a 13 1/4-minute making-of feature and three deleted scenes, the most important of which is a flashback to the death of Petrosevitch's wife. Writer/director Don Michael Paul also includes a very funny deleted scene, during the closing credits, of Twitch's jailhouse conversation with his "large" girlfriend, played by Monique. ![]() Some of the film's stunts at the beginning and ending seem there only because they are stunts, but the stuff in the prison itself hangs together well. Tony Plena plays Latino warden "El Fuego" and rapper Kurupt plays prisoner Twitch. Unexpected guests are a group of parachuting commandos, led by actors Morris Chestnut and Nia Peeples but they only want to free McKenna to learn where the gold is hidden. McKenna has mellowed in prison and found religion, but he still will not reveal the whereabouts of his $200 million in gold "blood money." One guest at the execution is Jane McPherson (Linda Thorson), now a Supreme Court justice, but also the judge who originally sentenced McKenna. Because Petrosevitch was shot and his heart actually stopped beating during the raid, convicted killer Lester McKenna (Bruce Weitz) asks for Petrosevitch to be his companion in his last hour before execution. Frazier and Petrosevitch are both being processed as inmates. ![]() The film then cuts to eight months later at the newly reopened Alcatraz island prison (Alcatraz was closed in 1962) in San Francisco Bay. After stealing a car and driving crazily, a shootout erupts when FBI Special Agent Ellen Williams (Claudia Christian of TV's "Babylon 5") tries to arrest them. The film opens with Seagal's FBI agent Sascha Petrosevitch (we're not actually told until 47 minutes in that he is FBI, but it's pretty obvious from the trailer and box copy that he is) trying to get a job as a car thief for Sonny Ekvall, an East European crime syndicate head. Call it "Die Hard in Alcatraz," but at least the action is plentiful and the actors appealing, especially rapper Ja Rule as Seagal's sidekick Nicholas Frazier. Here's a decent review of Half Past Dead taken from * Half Past Dead (Columbia TriStar video and DVD, PG-13, 98 min.) I'm not a big fan of Steven Seagal, but this has to be the most entertaining film I've seen him in.
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