The post-war Philippines are a wild west for profiteers like occasionally legitimate salvager Pat Morrison (Burt Reynolds). He learns of a stash of pre-war gold hidden during the Japanese reconquest of a nearby, military-controlled island from Trev Jones (Clarke Gordon), one of the five men responsible for hiding the treasure.
Morrison reaches out and manipulates three of the remaining four former soldiers to fly out to Manilla to meet him: Draco (Rodolfo Acosta), a Native man from the Southwestern United States, Hansen (Lyle Bettger), a short-tempered navy man, and Jesus (Vic Diaz), one of Morrison’s local contacts for pawning hot salvage.
The plot thickens as Trev Jones is kidnapped by The Wombat (Jeff Corey), an Australian freelance journalist and small-time blackmailer, in a plot to milk Trev’s tennis star daughter, Bobby (Anne Francis), financially for the whereabouts of her father. Morrison must help Bobby Jones find her father before the rag-tag group of treasure hunters can begin their quest.
What could have been an adventurous romp through South Asia ends up a confused and rambling flop. The way this movie was put together, it may as well have been three separate movies. There are some stellar performances and a lot of good bones in the story itself, but Impasse unwinds in unpleasant and sometimes nonsensical ways.
There are strange storylines such as Bobby Jones stripping and then befriending her tennis stalker, Morrison sleeping with his most profitable and trusted partner’s wife, and Draco’s quest for a skinny Filipino woman he met during the war (who, surprise, has aged and gained weight). The subplots end up with more screen time and exposition than the treasure hunt itself, the main aspect of the movie by its branding, which ends up a footnote.
The biggest disappointment is the simplicity of the solution, and Impasse gears us up for a real head-scratcher ending. It's no Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Da Vinci Code, or National Treasure. Although it is a bizarrely unfocused Orientalist adventure, Impasse does hold some value for students of film—despite racist and sexist portrayals. Impasse is a snapshot of 1960s socio-cultural norms and archetypal of filmmaking at the time. For this reason, Impasse is an optional purchase for classic film collections.