Half Past Dead

Last updated
Half Past Dead
Half Past Dead.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Don Michael Paul
Written byDon Michael Paul
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography Michael Slovis
Edited byVanick Moradian
Music by Tyler Bates
Production
company
Distributed by Screen Gems (through Sony Pictures Releasing [1] )
Release date
  • November 15, 2002 (2002-11-15)
Running time
98 minutes
Countries
  • United States
  • Germany
LanguageEnglish
Budget$25 million [2]
Box office$19.2 million [3] [4]

Half Past Dead is a 2002 American action film written and directed by Don Michael Paul in his directorial debut. The film was produced by Elie Samaha, Andrew Stevens, and Steven Seagal, who also starred in the lead role. [5] The film co-stars Morris Chestnut, Ja Rule, Tony Plana, Kurupt, and Nia Peeples. It tells the story of a criminal who infiltrates a prison to interrogate a prisoner about the location of a fortune in gold while an undercover FBI agent has to stop him. Distribution and copyrights were held by Columbia Pictures. Half Past Dead was released in the United States on November 15, 2002, by Screen Gems. The film garnered negative reviews from critics, and only grossed $19 million worldwide against its $25 million production budget. Half Past Dead was Steven Seagal's last widely released film before he shifted to several direct-to-video films in many years until 2010.

Contents

Plot

In San Francisco, FBI agent Sasha Petrosevitch goes undercover as a Russian car thief and is brought in by criminal Nick Frazier to work for crime boss Sonny Eckvall, who apparently shot and killed Sasha's wife. After some time, FBI Special Agent Ellen Williams and her team show up to nail Nick, but things go wrong, and Sasha gets shot.

After eight months of recovery following his brief bout of being clinically dead from the shooting, Sasha is incarcerated along with Nick in the newly reopened Alcatraz prison. Run by the charismatic warden, Juan Ruiz "El Fuego" Escarzaga, the place is known for its new state of the art death chamber where the condemned can choose from five different ways to die: lethal injection, gas chamber, hanging, firing squad, or electric chair.

Lester McKenna is the first death row prisoner brought to the new Alcatraz and also the first prisoner scheduled to be executed. An older man, he stole $200,000,000 worth of gold bricks in a heist that resulted in five deaths and hid the loot at an unknown location. Federal Bureau of Prisons head Frank Hubbard and Supreme Court Justice Jane McPherson have arrived to witness the execution, which is a result of Jane sentencing Lester.

But she's not the only one interested in Lester. A small but well-equipped team of terrorists who call themselves the "49ers" have parachuted onto the Alcatraz island and gained control of it. Led by 49er One, a.k.a. Hubbard's assistant Donny Johnson, and 49er Six, the team finds Lester, and they want him to give up the location of his hidden stash of gold. When Lester will not tell them, Donny shoots a nearby priest and threatens to kill others if the information is not delivered.

Donny's plan is disrupted, however, when Sascha decides to step in and fight back. At this point, Sasha's true identity is revealed and he used Nick to get to Sonny Eckvall, whom he seeks revenge on for the death of his wife. When Sasha rescues Lester, the 49ers strap Jane to the electric chair and threaten to kill her, all while Ellen and her team prepare a rescue plan from the mainland.

With the help of Nick and some of the other inmates such as Twitch and Little Joe, Sasha sets out to rescue Jane and bring Donny down, before Alcatraz becomes everyone's final resting place. The conflict culminates in the 49ers taking McPherson and Lester on a helicopter and departing with Sascha in pursuit. Donny attempts to buy time by throwing MacPherson out of the helicopter, but Sascha dives after her and manages to save her, while Lester reveals that he was previously given an improvised bomb vest of grenades that he sets off, killing himself and Donny. Sasha subsequently leads the investigators to the gold, Lester having told him its location before his death.

A month later, Nick, having previously learnt of Sasha's reasons for hunting Donny, is still recovering in prison, but is informed in a meeting with Sasha that he is being released early for his role in the hostage crisis.

Cast

Production

The film was at one stage known as Lockdown and was shot in Germany. [6] [7]

Release

Home media

The film was released on DVD in the US on March 4, 2003. [8]

Reception

Box office

Half Past Dead was released on November 15, 2002, in the United States, where it grossed $7.8 million on its opening weekend. It grossed $15.5 million in the US and another $3.7 million outside the US, for a total worldwide gross of $19.2 million. [3]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 3% of 88 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.1/10.The website's consensus reads: "Seagal is now too bulky to make a convincing action hero, and Half Past Dead is too silly and incoherent to deliver any visceral kicks." [9] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 23 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews. [10] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. [11] It was ranked number 61 in a Rotten Tomatoes editorial on the 100 worst movies of all time. [12]

Critic Roger Ebert wrote, "Half Past Dead is like an alarm that goes off with nobody in the room. It does its job, stops, and nobody cares." [13]

Seagal was nominated for Worst Actor at the 2002 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards and the 23rd Golden Raspberry Awards. [14] [15]

Sequel

Half Past Dead 2 was released direct-to-video on May 15, 2007. The film does not feature actors Steven Seagal or Ja Rule. The starring characters were Twitch (Kurupt) and Burke (Bill Goldberg).

Related Research Articles

<i>The Rock</i> (film) 1996 American action thriller film by Michael Bay

The Rock is a 1996 American action thriller film directed by Michael Bay, produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, with a screenplay by David Weisberg, Douglas S. Cook and Mark Rosner. It stars Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris, with supporting roles played by Michael Biehn, William Forsythe, David Morse, and John Spencer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Seagal</span> American actor, martial artist, and filmmaker (born 1952)

Steven Frederic Seagal is an American actor, producer, screenwriter, martial artist, and musician. A 7th-dan black belt in aikido, he began his adult life as a martial arts instructor in Japan where he became the first American to teach in an aikido dojo. He later moved to Los Angeles where he continued teaching aikido. In 1988, Seagal made his acting debut in Above the Law, which is regarded as the first American film to feature aikido in fight sequences. He has appeared in over 50 films.

<i>Above the Law</i> (1988 film) 1988 action film by Andrew Davis

Above the Law, also known as Nico: Above the Law, or simply Nico, is a 1988 American crime action thriller film cowritten, coproduced and directed by Andrew Davis. It marked the film debut of Steven Seagal, who was also a producer, and stars Seagal alongside Pam Grier, Sharon Stone, Ron Dean and Henry Silva. Seagal plays Nico Toscani, an ex-CIA agent, Aikido specialist and a Chicago policeman who discovers a conspiracy upon investigating the mysterious shipment of military explosives seized from a narcotics dealer.

<i>Marked for Death</i> 1990 action film directed by Dwight H. Little

Marked for Death is a 1990 American action film directed by Dwight H. Little. The film stars Steven Seagal as John Hatcher, a former DEA troubleshooter who returns to his Illinois hometown to find it taken over by a posse of vicious Jamaican drug dealers led by Screwface. Using a combination of fear and Obeah, a Jamaican syncretic religion of West African and Caribbean origin similar to Haitian vodou and Santería, Screwface rules the drug trade in Lincoln Heights.

<i>Hard to Kill</i> 1990 film by Bruce Malmuth

Hard to Kill is a 1990 American vigilante action-thriller film directed by Bruce Malmuth, starring Steven Seagal, Kelly LeBrock, William Sadler and Frederick Coffin. Seagal's second film after Above the Law, he portrays Mason Storm, a detective who falls into a coma after being shot during a home invasion that killed his wife. Reawakening seven years later, Storm embarks on a journey to avenge the death of his wife, and expose the corruption of Senator Vernon Trent, the man who ordered the murder of his family. The film was released on February 9, 1990, and grossed $59 million.

<i>Under Siege</i> 1992 film by Andrew Davis

Under Siege is a 1992 American action thriller film directed by Andrew Davis, written by J. F. Lawton, and starring Steven Seagal as a former Navy SEAL who must intercept a group of mercenaries, led by Tommy Lee Jones, after they commandeer the U.S. Navy battleship Missouri.

<i>Fire Down Below</i> (1997 film) 1997 American film

Fire Down Below is a 1997 American action film starring Steven Seagal and directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá in his directorial debut. The film also includes cameos by country music performers Randy Travis, Mark Collie, Ed Bruce, Marty Stuart and Travis Tritt, and country-rocker and the Band member Levon Helm, as well as Kris Kristofferson in a supporting role. Steven Seagal plays Jack Taggert, an EPA agent who investigates a Kentucky mine and helps locals stand up for their rights. The film was released in the United States on September 5, 1997.

Sasha is a unisex name which originated among Slavic peoples from Eastern and Southern Europe as the shortened version of Alexander and Alexandra. It is also used as a surname, although very rarely. Alternative spellings include: Саша, Сашо, Саше, Saša, Sasza (Polish), Sașa (Romanian), Sacha (French), Sascha (German), Sascia (Italian), Sasja and סשה.

<i>Escape from Alcatraz</i> (film) 1979 film by Don Siegel

Escape from Alcatraz is a 1979 American prison thriller film directed and produced by Don Siegel. The screenplay, written by Richard Tuggle, is based on the 1963 non-fiction book of the same name by J. Campbell Bruce, which recounts the 1962 prisoner escape from the maximum security prison on Alcatraz Island. The film stars Clint Eastwood as escape ringleader Frank Morris, alongside Patrick McGoohan, Fred Ward, Jack Thibeau, and Larry Hankin with Danny Glover appearing in his film debut.

<i>Into the Sun</i> (2005 film) 2005 film

Into the Sun is a 2005 action film directed by Christopher Morrison and starring Steven Seagal, Matthew Davis, Takao Osawa, Eddie George, Juliette Marquis, and William Atherton.

<i>Analyze That</i> 2002 film by Harold Ramis

Analyze That is a 2002 American crime comedy film directed by Harold Ramis and produced by Paula Weinstein and Jane Rosenthal. The film is a sequel to the 1999 film Analyze This. The film starred Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal who respectively reprise their roles as mobster Paul Vitti and psychiatrist Ben Sobel.

<i>The Foreigner</i> (2003 film) 2003 American film

The Foreigner is a 2003 American action thriller film starring Steven Seagal. The film was shot entirely in Warsaw, Poland, and was the first of a long string of direct-to-video films released starring Seagal from 2003 to 2009. The film recouped its budget from the US home video market alone.

<i>The Patriot</i> (1998 film) 1998 American action thriller film

The Patriot is a 1998 American action thriller film directed by Dean Semler. Starring Steven Seagal, the film is loosely based on the novel The Last Canadian by William C. Heine. Seagal's first direct-to-video film, it features him as a local doctor and former immunologist who races against time to find a cure for an active viral outbreak, the origins of which trace back to a militia leader who injected himself with a deadly virus.

<i>Out for a Kill</i> 2003 American film

Out for a Kill is a 2003 straight-to-video action film directed by Michael Oblowitz. It stars Steven Seagal.

Julius R. "Jules" Nasso is an Italian-American film producer, pharmacologist, and businessman. Nasso is a reputed Gambino crime family associate. In 2004, he was sentenced to a year in prison after pleading guilty to his role in an extortion scheme against the actor Steven Seagal.

<i>Half Past Dead 2</i> 2007 American film

Half Past Dead 2 is a 2007 American action film directed by Art Camacho and starring Bill Goldberg and Kurupt. It is a sequel to the 2002 film Half Past Dead. Kurupt and Tony Plana are the only actors to return from the first film. The film was released straight to video in the United States on May 15, 2007.

<i>Bulletface</i> 2010 American film

Bulletface is a 2010 American action thriller film directed by Albert Pyun. The screenplay was written by Randall Fontana, who had previously collaborated with Pyun on Hong Kong '97.

<i>Force of Execution</i> 2013 American film

Force of Execution is a 2013 direct-to-video action crime film directed by Keoni Waxman, written by Richard Beattie and Michael Black, and starring Steven Seagal, Ving Rhames, and Danny Trejo. The film marked the fourth collaboration between Seagal and Waxman, and the fourth collaboration between Steven Seagal and executive producer Binh Dang. The film is set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

<i>A Good Man</i> (2014 film) 2014 film

A Good Man is a 2014 American action crime film directed by Keoni Waxman and starring Steven Seagal, Victor Webster, Tzi Ma, Iulia Verdes, and Claudiu Bleont. The film is a prequel to Force of Execution, and is the fifth collaboration between Steven Seagal and director Keoni Waxman. A Good Man was followed by a sequel, Absolution, in 2015.

<i>Contract to Kill</i> 2016 American film

Contract to Kill is a 2016 American action film starring Steven Seagal. It received a limited theatrical release in the United States, and was released via video on demand.

References

  1. ↑ "Half Past Dead (2002)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films . Retrieved March 15, 2021.
  2. ↑ 'Half Past Dead' production budget, The Numbers . Retrieved March 18, 2015.
  3. 1 2 "Half Past Dead (2002)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 19, 2010.
  4. ↑ "The Box Office History of 'Half Past Dead' (2002)", The Numbers , published 2003. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  5. ↑ Mitchell, Elvis (November 15, 2002). "Half Past Dead (2002) FILM REVIEW; Prison (Bam!) Pyrotechnics" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on September 27, 2020. Retrieved February 24, 2024.
  6. ↑ "Spielberg would consider directing Harry Potter sequel". National Post. Don Mills, Ont. 20 September 2001. p. A20. ProQuest   329990720.
  7. ↑ "Seagal Ready for Action on Franchise's 'Half Past Dead' and 'Foreigner'". hive4media.com . September 20, 2001. Archived from the original on November 1, 2001. Retrieved September 21, 2019– via The Hollywood Reporter.
  8. ↑ "Half Past Dead". IGN . Archived from the original on January 18, 2024. Retrieved December 21, 2015.
  9. ↑ "Half Past Dead". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango Media . Retrieved February 24, 2024. OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  10. ↑ "Half Past Dead". Metacritic . Fandom, Inc. Retrieved December 21, 2015.
  11. ↑ "CinemaScore". cinemascore.com. Archived from the original on September 16, 2017. Retrieved August 17, 2020.
  12. ↑ "Bad Movies: The 100 Worst Movies of All Time". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Archived from the original on February 21, 2024. Retrieved February 24, 2024.
  13. ↑ "Half Past Dead". Chicago Sun-Times . November 15, 2002. Archived from the original on April 23, 2023. Retrieved December 21, 2015– via RogerEbert.com.Star half.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg
  14. ↑ Campbell, Duncan (February 9, 2003). "Raspberry time for Hollywood's worst". The Guardian . Archived from the original on May 24, 2022. Retrieved December 21, 2015.
  15. ↑ "Past Winners Database". The Envelope at LA Times. Archived from the original on August 15, 2007. Retrieved September 24, 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.