shakercoola Highly stylised action thriller that lacks credibility and enough substance in its story. It has a protracted and less than believable plot with repetitive, unimaginative stunts and a less than convincing dialogue. So many characters leap from high places while firing guns, and the audience doesn't even get the chance to see them land. Seagal looks a little too bulky as believable as a fighting machine. It goes through the motions of an action thriller, but there is a deadness at its core.

Jackson Booth-Millard I had always had my opinion about the leading star of this film, and only ever really liked him in Under Siege, but in recent times I decided to give him a chance and try his films, and this was another one of them. Basically car thief Sasha Petrosevitch (Razzie nominated Steven Seagal) is brought in by criminal Nicolas 'Nick' Frazier (rapper Ja Rule) working for crime boss Sonny Eckvall (Richard Bremmer), who apparently killed his wife. During the job however FBI Special Agent Ellen 'EZ' Williams (Claudia Christian) catch the team, and Sascha ends up getting shot, and for eight months he is medically dead, until his recovery finally works, and he is immediately imprisoned in Alcatraz. He joins Nick and the many other dangerous and petty criminal inmates in the infamous prison that has only just been reopened by new charismatic Warden El Fuego (Tony Plana), and the place is equipped with a new state-of-the-art execution chamber. The dead men walking can choose from the five methods of death: gas chamber, lethal injection, electrocution, hanging or firing squad, and the first criminal to face the new facility is gold heist thief Lester McKenna (Bruce Weitz). Watching the execution to see how the system works are Supreme Court Justice Judge June McPherson (Linda Thorson) and Federal Bureau of Prisons head Frank Hubbard (Stephen J. Cannell), but also interested in getting their hands on McKenna is a team of terrorists, called the "49ers". They are led by number one, Donald Robert Johnson (Boyz n the Hood's Morris Chestnut) who wants the stash of gold that has been hidden by the man on death row, and as he won't tell them Johnson is holding the Judge and others ransom to get what they want. Obviously Sascha are trapped inside as well, and they decide to do something about the situation, fighting back, but of course we find out Sascha is actually an undercover cop trying to find Sonny Eckvall. With the help of the other inmates, including Twitch (Kurupt) and Little Joe (Michael 'Bear' Taliferro), and in the end Alcatraz goes back supposedly to its original state, the villain is defeated, and Sascha does rescue the Judge and others. Also starring Nia Peeples as 49er Six, Michael McGrady as Guard Damon J. Kestner and Hannes Jaenicke as Agent Hartmann. Seagal is reasonably okay as the at first unlikely but then obvious hero, and his high kicks certainly make for alright viewing, some of the story was in ways interesting, but overall it is almost a rip-off of The Rock and other similar films, so not much originality, and not the highest amount of satisfaction, a sort of silly action crime thriller. Adequate!

disdressed12 you know,i actually enjoyed this movie.really had a blast.it may be full of plot holes and illogical moments,but i never really thought about it.it was fast paced and fun.lots of action,a few fight scenes that were adequate,not great but not horrible.lots of gun battles.there were some funny moment,some of which might have been unintentional,but some were intentional.i don't think this was trying too hard to be a serious movie.sometimes you just need to shut off your brain for awhile and allow yourself to be entertained.but you have to been in the mood.if you're not,you won't enjoy it.luckily i was.for 95 minutes or so,i forgot about everything else and enjoyed the ride.for me,Half Past Dead is a 7/10

gangstahippie I saw Half Past Dead back in 2003 and I forgot about it.I've been getting into Seagal again recently and I watched this film a few weeks ago.Most of Seagal's films were Rated R.This is his only PG-13-rated film to date(though "Fire Down Below" was a very tame R, could have easily been PG-13).I was surprised at the low score.Sure this film is no "Above The Law", "Under Siege" or any of Seagal's earlier works, but it is a fairly entertaining action film.It was better than "Fire Down Below", "On Deadly Ground" and the majority of his straight to video fare.The film is about an FBI agent who goes undercover in a new Alcatraz-like prison.A man who buried a large amount of money years ago is to be executed.However some terrorists break into the prison and force the man to tell them where the money is.Part of the film involves the terrorists(led by Morris Chestnut who previously was in Under Siege 2 and plays a fairly good role) playing mind games with the police officers and the hostages, one of whom is a supreme court judge.The other part involves Seagal, Ja Rule and the other prisoners trying to save everybody.Half Past Dead is a fairly underrated and decent enough Seagal film.Too bad that after this, he was reduced to crappy straight to video fare.