A wretched action flop goes undercover to convince Netflix users it doesn’t suck

Netflix users have proven a thousand times over that the critical consensus, or a movie’s reputation, doesn’t mean a damn thing when it comes to combing through the library in search of some brainless running and gunning. The streaming service’s customer base are a hugely forgiving bunch, then, something that’s been reiterated yet again by the undeserved popularity of Half Past Dead.

As per FlixPatrol, the utterly wretched Steven Seagal vehicle has become a Top 10 hit in multiple countries around the world, almost 20 years to the day after sinking without a trace in theaters by way of failing to recoup the $25 million budget in ticket sales. Seagal flicks shouldn’t be held to a particularly high standard, though, but even by the polarizing actor’s standards – this one was a disaster.

An almost hilariously bad Rotten Tomatoes score of just three percent makes it the martial artist’s worst-reviewed feature ever that scored a wide theatrical release. While the veteran has certainly starred in at least a handful of efforts that are notably worse, none of them opened on more than 2100 screens like Don Michael Paul’s directorial debut did.

Seagal’s protagonist Sasha Petrosevitch ticks a lot of “generic action hero” boxes as a widowed FBI agent who works undercover to infiltrate a shady organization while also battling his personal connections to the criminals he’s been pursuing, before a heist gone awry threatens to derail both sides of the operation. Half Past Dead isn’t big, nor is it clever – but it has become a hit on Netflix, so there’s that.