Review of Hell in the Pacific

Fans of Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune failed to turn out for this financially-unsuccessful but not uninteresting two-person island adventure from director John Boorman. Filming in the scenic islands of Palau, Boorman dispenses with the preliminaries and gets right down to business. Two men during World War II are marooned on an island in the Pacific: Marvin, an American pilot, is pitted against Mifune, a Japanese Naval Captain. Neither man speaks the other's language, yet they end up striking a truce of sorts after torturing each other for almost an hour, the result being a raft made out of bamboo that will carry them out passed the reef into open water. Screenwriters Alexander Jacobs and Eric Bercovici, working from producer Reuben Bercovitch's story, were not able to supply their actors with much verbal interaction, and yet Marvin and Mifune are entirely capable of creating sound characterizations by just their expressions and their actions (they do superlative work). Boorman doesn't get too heavy or contemplative (a plus with only two people on the screen); however, he loses his assured footing in the final reel. The picture doesn't just go off the track, it literally explodes. No one who worked on this film could have been satisfied with the clumsy conclusion (reportedly, Boorman was shut out of the decision-making by the executives). Still, the film's better moments of drama and humor and survival stay in the memory, and Conrad Hall's cinematography is wonderful. ** from ****