Half Past Dead (2002) [Movie Review]

Ever hear of Die Hard? Well, this movie is basically that. Only this one makes almost no sense, and is a lot worse.

So, in this blockbuster of a film, we have Steven Seagal playing an undercover FBI agent, Sascha Petrosevitch, trying to bring down the major crime boss Sonny Eckvall. To do this, he must win the trust of Nicolas Frazier, played by Ja Rule. While undercover, Special Agent Ellen Williams shows up to offer Nick a plea bargain. Then we get a shootout, Sascha is severely wounded and dies for 22 minutes, in which case he is revived by the memory of his late wife. Flash forward 8 months, Nick has just been transported to New Alcatraz, a prison which is just opening it's doors, and is about to have it's first execution. The man being executed? Lester McKenna (Bruce Weitz), who has stolen and hid $200 million in gold bricks, and he plans to bring the location of these bricks to his grave. Then comes the best part, a group of terrorists wants the gold, so the break into the prison, guns-blazing, shooting guards, and taking some high value hostages. Now, Sascha Petrosevitch has to fight these guys all by himself. With the help of the entire prison population.

Sounds awesome right? Heh. It's not. First off, this is quite possibly the most unrealistic film I've seen. One, none of the characters have real emotions, making for a film that is quite forgettable. I'm actually kind of struggling to remember what happened not even two hours ago. What's supposed to be a strong bond between Sascha and Nick just feels really awkward and forced. Oh well, number two on the list is the fact that this prison, despite being a very "harsh" prison, allows the inmates to play video games, graffiti the walls, and really do whatever they want. Our next reason for this being such a bad film is the editing. Ever see the slow motion effect? Well, whoever made this must have just found out about it, because they probably could have cut about 20 minutes off of this film if they laid off the slow-mo. On top of that, the guns didn't feel real, which is kind of a big deal in a movie that is all about guns. Overall, Half Past Dead is not a good film, I'd give it a pass.

Rating: 4/10

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Discussion topic: Assume you are in Lester's position. You have $200 million hidden somewhere, and are on death row. Do you tell anyone where it is? If so, who? If not, why not?