Okay, use me to draw an audience -- but I'll become a real actor and make it so you can't get rid of me." To that end, Rule, né Jeff Atkins, says he wants to start writing his own scripts.

The result would be "Half Past Dead," which fails as miserably at personalizing the leaden Seagal as it does at injecting any note of credibility into the idea of taking the prison out of mothballs.