The Movie:

In this odd culture clash crime film, Steven Seagal plays Sasha Petrosevitch, a world weary car thief who is brought into the big time when a hood named Nick Frazier (Ja Rule) brings him into the fold of a mobster named Sonny Eckvall (Richard Bremmer), who may or may not have been responsible for the murder of Sasha's late wife. Unfortunately for all involved, the feds, lead by agent Ellen Williams (Claudia Christian), are onto Sonny and when they raid his place, Sasha gets caught in the crossfire and takes a bullet and winds up on life support for eight months while Nick takes down a cop or two.

When Sasha wakes up, he and Nick are on death row in the newly reopened Alcatraz prison under the strict rule of warden 'El Fuego' Escarzaga (Tony Plana). Just as the prison officials are about to execute their first prisoner, Lester McKenna (Bruce Weitz), a small fringe militia called the 49ers take over the island by force. Their intent is to capture Lester and find out where he's hidden a few million dollars in gold but Lester isn't talking and so they start taking hostages and threaten to execute them unless Lester will spill the beans. Sasha decides it's time to bust into action and he rescues Lester but the 49ers have got a few more tricks up their sleeves. If that weren't complicated enough, Agent Williams is on the scene and there may be more to Sasha's true identity and purpose inside the prison than his follows hoods realize.

Half Past Dead is basically an hour and a half of various people running around beating each other up and yelling a lot. The characters are all completely cardboard and the plot is one bad cliché after another bad cliché. The story only exists to string together a series of action scenes which serve as the highlights of the film. If you go into this one expecting high art, you're going to be sorely disappointed. That said, Half Past Dead isn't that kind of movie. Parts of this film are so incredibly dumb and so poorly thought out that they transcend that very definition of bad and almost work on a different level all together. It's like a car wreck, you know you shouldn't watch it but you can't turn away because you have to know how much worse it's going to get before it's all over with.

In terms of technique, a lot of the film takes place in the shadows, possibly to add atmosphere, possibly to hide Seagal's physique. The locations and sets are appropriately gritty and tough looking but they don't do much to help the overacting or bad dialogue that peppers this film from start to finish. The action scenes are just as ludicrous as the dialogue. Sure they keep the film moving at a nice clip but they're so over the top that the fights are more like cartoon hits than actual real, human combat. Seagal takes it easy here as he has in past films and his particular fight scenes don't measure up to what he's proven to be capable of before or since this film was made.

In the end, if seeing Seagal mix it up in a prison with a strange militia group and some hip-hop artists sounds like your idea of a good movie, or at least a marginally entertaining turd of a movie, Half Past Dead will fit the bill. It's schlocky and unintentionally funny but it's not even close to good. Not by a long shot.

The Video:

Half Past Dead lumbers onto Blu-ray in a 1080p AVC 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that offers a marginal but unimpressive upgrade over its standard definition counterpart. The film was shot to look dark but many scenes are a bit on the murky side. Shadow detail is unimpressive and there are some minor compression artifacts present here and there. Edge enhancement is held in check and isn't overpowering and there aren't any problems with print damage to note, but by high definition standards this release is sub-par in terms of sharpness and color reproduction. The film is perfectly watchable of course, but it doesn't offer the clarity of impressive detail levels that many of us expect from the technology.

The Audio:

Sony supplies English, French and Portuguese Dolby TrueHD 5.1 tracks alongside a standard Spanish language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix. Optional subtitles are provided in English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Thai and Korean.

How does the English TrueHD mix shape up? It's good, but not great. Seagal's tendency to mumble some of his lines doesn't help things much but as far as the encoding and the surround action go, things are decent. The soundtrack has some nice bounce to it and the rear channels spring to life during the action scenes. Bass response is tight but it could have been a little stronger. There aren't any problems to complain about with hiss or distortion and the levels are always well balanced. Some more directional action during a few scenes would have maybe upped the excitement factor a little bit here but as it stands this is a perfectly acceptable effort.

The Extras:

The most substantial extra feature on this release is a commentary track with director Don Michael Paul. He talks about the origins of the project, how it was written years before it was filmed because a couple of other projects got in the way, and what it was like working with Steven Segal and a couple of hip-hop artists. He comes across as a likeable and intelligent guy but nothing he says here really helps the film much at all. If you dug the movie and want to learn more about it, this will fit the bill but it isn't likely to earn the picture any new fans.

Up next is a thirteen minute featurette entitled Making Half Past Dead. This fairly generic behind the scenes documentary features a mix of on set footage and talking head interview clips with the film's director. Rounding out the extras are a trio of inconsequential deleted scenes, some ridiculously loud animated menus, chapter selection, and the film's original theatrical trailer. The video supplements are all presented in standard definition. This release is also Blu-ray Live Enabled so if your player is web-enabled, you can go online and interact with other fans as you watch it if that's your thing.

Overall:

Half Past Dead doesn't benefit too much from the high def upgrade that this Blu-ray release offers. Die-hard fans of the film might want to pick it up but otherwise there are definitely better films in the genre to spend your money on. That said, the film does provide a modicum of bad movie entertainment and seen with an inebriated group of friends, it's worth a rental.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.