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Half Past Dead (2002)

tomatometer

2

Average Rating: 3/10
Reviews Counted: 86
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 84

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.

0

Average Rating: 2.8/10
Critic Reviews: 25
Fresh: 0 | Rotten: 25

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.

audience

50

liked it
Average Rating: 2.9/5
User Ratings: 17,795

My Rating

Movie Info

Action hero Steven Seagal goes behind bars -- though don't worry, he isn't really a bad guy -- in this action thriller. Sascha Petrosevitch (Seagal) is an FBI agent working undercover to infiltrate a gangland kingpin's operations. While Petrosevitch is able to gain the trust of one of the gangster's lieutenants, Nick Frazier (Ja Rule), things go haywire during an FBI raid, and Petrosevitch takes several slugs in the back as he struggles to maintain his cover. Eight months later, Petrosevitch and

PG-13, 1 hr. 38 min.

Action & Adventure

Don Michael Paul

Mar 4, 2003

$15.4M

Screen Gems

Cast

All Critics (87) | Top Critics (25) | Fresh (2) | Rotten (85) | DVD (10)

The title of this dismal action flick refers to the Seagal character's having suffered a near-death experience, though he's returned from the other side with a remarkable lack of insight.

January 6, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Half Past Dead may be the year's funniest unintentional comedy for its inane plot, repetitive, unimaginative stunts and dreadful dialogue.

January 6, 2007 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Comment
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Corny, nonsensical buddy flick.

November 19, 2002 Full Review Source: Village Voice | Comment
Village Voice
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This is so bad.

November 18, 2002 Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper | Comment
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Here, common sense flies out the window, along with the hail of bullets, none of which ever seem to hit Sascha.

November 15, 2002 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

First-time director Don Michael Paul can't make the action move, though he wisely keeps the lighting dark and murky so we can barely see whether withering star Seagal really can keep up.

November 15, 2002 Full Review Source: USA Today | Comment
USA Today
Top Critic IconTop Critic

I can't think of anything more cringe-inducing than Seagal saying, in a strained would-be ghetto accent, 'We aight.'

January 29, 2009 Full Review Source: TheMovieReport.com | Comment
TheMovieReport.com

What is it about Steven Seagal and three-word movie titles?

October 18, 2008 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | Comment
Urban Cinefile

Great title. Lousy movie. (Blu-ray Edition)

August 16, 2008 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis | Comment
Movie Metropolis

Seagal at his most minimal, saying and doing less in this film than in practically any film he's been in. Maybe it's for the best.

August 16, 2008 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis | Comment
Movie Metropolis

A sizeable amount of the budget for this lazy film must have been spent on ammunition.

March 7, 2007 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | Comment
Guardian [UK]

Sometimes, when you've just wasted a tenner and a perfectly good evening watching another dumb, gratuitously gun-filled, hackneyed, nonsensical action picture, don't you wish you were as thick, lazy and easily pleased as Hollywood wants you to be?

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

... satisfies neither intellectually nor viscerally.

September 20, 2004 Comment
Tyler Morning Telegraph (Texas)

...makes something retarded like Con Air look like an absolute action classic. And that's saying something.

May 16, 2004 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
eFilmCritic.com

[Steven Seagal's] trademark limb-breaking is absent.

August 1, 2003 Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews | Comment
Reel Film Reviews

It's quite slick, but Seagal's fans won't necessarily get what they paid for.

August 1, 2003 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | Comment
Empire Magazine

Look upon his fleshy neck, his dodgy hair and his strangely puffy immobile face, ye pantywaist liberals, and tremble!

July 8, 2003 Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | Comment
Guardian [UK]

It's absolutely worthless nonsense that's almost bad enough to make me wish cinema had never been invented.

May 20, 2003 Full Review Source: Daily Mirror [UK] | Comment
Daily Mirror [UK]

Half Past Dead translated from Latin means 'Die Hard in a prison,' or so the filmmakers must have believed.

May 20, 2003 Comment
Palo Alto Weekly

Waaay too much like hard labour.

May 8, 2003 Full Review Source: RTE Interactive (Dublin, Ireland) | Comment

Once upon a time Seagal's fighting made him look pretty deadly. These days he's looking way past dead.

April 15, 2003 Full Review Source: BBC | Comment

Here's yet another deafening, preposterous action movie created for extremely undemanding audiences that don't care about logic and coherence.

March 14, 2003 Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | Comment
Shadows on the Wall

The movie doesn't even work as a vehicle for Ja Rule, who's perfectly likable but gets lost in the hullabaloo of helicopter crashes, hostage negotiations, and assault weapons.

March 10, 2003 Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | Comment
Austin Chronicle
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Half Past Dead

this was a decent watch because its seagal and im a sucker for that guy. really, this was a silly movie that shows how far seagal has fallen since he was making average movies.

January 24, 2007
sanjurosamurai
danny d

Super Reviewer

Pitiful acting, even for a later Seagal flick. What happened to the action in his films, especially the actual hand-to-hand fighting? They actually made a sequel to this one and even though that one stars Bill Goldberg in it, it still can't be as bad as this piece of shit.

July 22, 2009
middleeasternfilms
Derek Daniels

Super Reviewer

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