Pacific Inferno : L'Enfer du Pacifique

Another badly-made Filipino war movie. I was hoping this late '70s outing would have more in common with the 1970s exploitation movies such as EBONY, IVORY AND JADE than earlier Filipino war flicks like THE RAVAGERS but I was wrong: this goes in the opposite direction, as it's an almost thrill-free movie about deep sea divers and the hunt for hidden treasure.

PACIFIC INFERNO attempts to tap into the blaxploitation market with the presence of black star Jim Brown as the lead, but he fails to bring much in the way of interest with him. The supporting cast, including Richard Jaeckel and and Filipino actor Vic Diaz, are similarly saddled with dull characters.

The film attempts to be some sort of prison camp movie but the family-friendly rating excises any exploitation potential. Much of it is taken up with murky underwater stuff, which is even duller than similar scenes in THUNDERBALL. The only halfway decent part of the movie is the climax, but by that stage it's all too little, too late. The terrible production values and rubbish script sink this one from the outset.

Our story: Two U.S. Navy deep sea divers search for silver coins hidden beneath the ocean off the Filipino coast. Our proof: Extremely dull entertainment at its best, with no plot in sight. Jim Brown is completely wasted, provided his help in producing this 70s war turkey. Richard Jaeckel is in his usual form. Don Cornelius and Richard Pryor are among those who gave special thanks in their contributions! BOMBS AWAY!!!

Why are there no good reviews? Because this film is hysterically bad.

Set in a Japanese prison camp in World War II, we have Jim Brown as the hero who puts up with a hysterically unbelievable racist officer, and just as hysterical is the way the Japanese officers brown nose Jim Brown's character.

This is probably the worst film any of these actors ever did. Stereotypes not only abound, but they dominate this film. The sixties-seventies music may be the best thing about the film, maybe because it has nothing to do with the film.

This is even difficult to sit back and enjoy as mindless fun. This film is even more racist than the message of racism it tries to deliver. And believe me, I was alive in the seventies, and we thought crap like this was just as stupid then. It was never popular.

My review was written in February 1985 after watching the film on Media Home Entertainment video cassette.

"Pacific Inferno" is actor-athlete Jim Brown's unsuccessful attempt to enter the film producer ranks, a dull low-budgeter imitating his 1967 "The Dirty Dozen" hit. Picture was lensed in the Philippines in 1977 under titles "Ship of Sand" and "Do They Ever Cry in America?", never released domestically and now surfacing for home video fans.

Picture takes almost 10 minutes to get started, limning the W. W. II story of captured U. S. navy divers forced by the Japanese to recover $16,000,000 in silver pesos dumped in Manila Bay in 1942 by orders of Gen. MacArthur (to avoid their falling into Japanese hands). Racist white Lt. Dennis (Rik von Nutter) is ranking officer among the Yanks, though Preston (Jim Brown) is their natural leader.

Preston works with Filipino prisoner Troy (Dindo Fernando) to organize an escape, in return for getting the silver pesos to the local partisans. Pic climaxes with Brown duplicating his "Dirty Dozen" brokenfield running with explosives in hand, abetted by teammate from that earlier film, Richard Jaeckel.

Physical production is deficient, with anachronistic hairstyles and attitudes taken from the 1970s. Casting is a joke, as Filipino film regular Vic Diaz plays a nasty Japanese and busty black actress-singer Wilma Reading is introed as a Filipino partisan. Brown's thank you credits are extended to Hugh Hefner, Don Cornelius, Maurice White, Bill Russell and Richard Pryor (last-named briefly his latterday employer at Indigo Productions), among others.

An old high school teacher of mine used to brag that he'd seen every movie EVER made, so one day a friend of mine and I decided to make up a movie called "Pacific Inferno". Later, we got into an argument whether the lead role was played by Carl Weathers or Billy Dee Williams. Our teacher found the argument interesting, so he came up to us and informed us that the lead role in "Pacific Inferno" was played by Jim Brown. We thought he was trapped in a lie, that was until we went to the library and discovered that "Pacific Inferno" was in fact a real movie. This incident forced me to rent the movie... it's horrible. Our made up movie had a better plot than this piece. Weathers and Billy Dee would have been much better in the picture.