Cult-Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

As I hope my previous reviews of the George Lucas/Steven Spielberg franchise make abundantly plain, I am a resolute admirer of the Indiana Jones film series from start to finish.  Raiders of the Lost Ark is an absolutely perfect movie in my opinion, and Temple of Doom casts a long shadow as a work of dark genius and perhaps even madness.

I like and enjoy the third film, 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but harbor some misgivings about the film on a few simple grounds, which I shall enumerate below.

First and foremost, the third Indy film literally removes “shadow” from the world of Indiana Jones, and the film-noir-type photography of both Raiders and Temple is wholly missing here.  Instead, every frame looks bright and well-lit, and subsequently some sense of visual layering or depth is absent from the proceedings.  The film feels Disney-fied, or at least visually sanitized in comparison with the previous two entries.

Metaphorically speaking, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade also subtracts “shadow” from its creative equation in other significant ways. 

In particular, it removes the shadow or blot over Indiana Jones’ very humanity -- his soul itself -- by sweeping under the carpet his morally questionable nature,  To wit, the movie ret-cons this great hero -- literally -- as a boy scout.  This very square incarnation of Indiana Jones doesn’t jibe with the hard-drinking, dissolute, shoot-first-ask-questions-later, womanizing man we met in Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981; the man “fallen from faith” who could have been a mirror image for Rene Belloq.

Similarly, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade dramatically hedges its bets by attempting to appeal to nostalgia and sentimentality instead of by pushing the franchise into new terrain the way that Temple of Doom so relentlessly pushed it.  The film unnecessarily plays like old home week.  It resurrects beloved supporting characters from Raiders of the Lost Ark such as Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) and Brody (Denholm Elliott), but then puts them to use that makes them appear silly, even ridiculous.  Specifically, these characters are shoe-horned into shallow comic-relief roles that, again, make mincemeat out of series history.  Brody has gone from being a wise elder and mentor to Indy to a living Looney Tunes character, in particular.

I suspect Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’s s strong accent on gimmicky comedy -- as well as the attempt to transform Indiana Jones from Fred Dobbs-like dissolution to Boy Scout-styled righteousness -- is a direct response to the darkness some critics and audiences apparently perceived (and disliked…) in Temple of Doom. 

But it is a calculated over-response, and so something about the film’s sense of balance is wrong.  Steven Spielberg once noted that he had “consciously regressed” in order to create this film and that he did so as an apology for the quality of the second film.  Accordingly, there is a weird diffidence to aspects of this movie that aren’t apparent in any of the other Indiana Jones films.  It’s as though Spielberg is unsure of himself here, and constantly lightening the mood with shticky comedy, thus questioning: is this too dark? 

Again, I must stress, however, that I feel Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a worthwhile film in spite of these faults. It is absolutely entertaining, and the action scenes, for the most part, are nail-biters.  But the primary value I pinpoint and would note in this sequel arises from the overall metaphor of the Holy Grail. 

The search for the Grail is not the search for the divine in all of us, as Brody might declare, but rather, the search for the “father” figure that so many people seek in life. The search for Jesus, or God, is thus mirrored in the film by Indiana’s search to really, truly know his own father, Henry (Sean Connery).

Even the Nazi characters such as Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody) are contextualized in terms of a relationship with questionable or unavailable father figures, and so the film boasts a nice artistic cohesion, with an emotional pay-off.

What I enjoy and appreciate most about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is that it suggests Indy’s hunt for “fortune and glory” originates from his desire to please a father who, in essence, can never be pleased.  This helps us to understand the man in a way that the continuity-heavy but pat Moab Desert scene does not.

The movie sees father and son Jones reconcile, and the hero move, at last, past his life-long quest to fill the emptiness inside through the acquisition of relics.  The Last Crusade thus moves the Indy character forward and helps to explain the more at-peace man he we meet again in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

I only wish that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade had told the same meaningful story without rewriting elements of the character’s history, and without removing so much of the “shadow” hanging over a great cinematic hero.

“If it is captured by the Nazis the armies of darkness will march all over the face of the earth.”

In 1912, boy-scout youngster, Indiana Jones (River Phoenix), attempts to recover the Cross of Coronado from a group of mercenaries.  He fails, but the failure sets the course for his life, and in 1938, an adult Indy (Harrison Ford) finally recovers the artifact that so impacted him as a youngster.

Soon, however, Indiana Jones becomes involved with a wealthy American industrialist, Walter Donovan (Julian Glover) who is hunting the Holy Grail with the help of the world’s greatest Grail scholar: Henry Jones…Indy’s remote and emotionally-unavailable father.

Unfortunately, Henry (Sean Connery) disappeared in Venice while working with Dr. Elsa Schneider (Doody), and now Indy must keep the grail out of Nazi hands and rescue his own father, a man he has never been able to relate to, or even talk to…

The quest for the grail takes the Jones family, plus Marcus Brody (Elliott) and Sallah (Rhys-Davies) to a cave in the canyon of the Crescent Moon, where an ancient knight guards the treasure, and hides it among several false grails. 

The one who chooses the right grail will become immortal, at least within the confines of the cave.  The one who chooses unwisely…will die a horrible death.

“You're meddling with powers you can't possibly comprehend.”

The first sequence in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is quite memorable, mainly because of the late River Phoenix’s persuasive and confident turn as a young Indiana Jones.  The young actor virtually channels Harrison Ford in his mannerisms, expressions, and even sense of body/motion.  The performance not only passes muster, it looks stronger on every re-watch. It’s a tour-de-force, for certain.

The problem with the splendidly paced and exciting sequence is two-fold, however.

The first is that -- in what is essentially a half-hour of his life -- Indiana Jones picks up every formative experience that makes him “who he is.”  He finds a style of clothing and hat to wear; he gets his first (bloody…) experience with a bull-whip, and he battles enemies for possession of a treasured relic. 

One of the great joys of the Indiana Jones movies, in my opinion, however, is the fact that the films don’t reveal too much biographical information.  The 1930s-1940s serials didn’t, either.  Their business was getting to the cliffhangers and fisticuffs.  This sequence -- introducing the leather jacket, the hat, the whip, the scar, and the obsession with relics/archaeology -- feels a little too pat because we recognize it as unrealistic.  In life, we don’t pick up all our important influences in one day, let alone in a half-hour. 

How many people do you know who cemented their identity at age 13…and it never changed?  This Indy has college, his first love affair, his first job, his friendship with Abner, and other landmark life experiences ahead of him, but everything we need to “understand” him comes from this afternoon in the Moab Desert.  It’s just a bit lacking in nuance and verisimilitude, despite the impressively-mounted stunts and Phoenix’s praise-worthy efforts.

More significantly, however, this sequence is book-ended by a specific and troublesome quotation.  Young Indy and Adult Indy both utter the words, vis-à-vis The Cross of Coronado: “it belongs in a museum!”

This is an intentional and wrong-headed ret-conning of the character as a kind of square, fuddy-duddy.  The ret-conning is assumed because Indy’s opinion doesn’t change at all, apparently, in the intervening years between thirteen and thirty-something.  He has the same opinion through all those years, thus encompassing, even, his time in Temple of Doom and Raiders.

Again, this is taking a bit too much of the edge off of Indiana Jones for my taste, and part and parcel of the over-response to Temple of Doom that impairs much of The Last Crusade. 

Let’s be blunt about this.  Our own lying eyes tell us Indy doesn’t collect gold idols and relics because “they belong in a museum.” He does it, at least partially, for the money.  Jones collects the relics, and then sells them to Brody’s museum, or, presumably, to his clients, like Lao Che.  He doesn’t just give over the relics because they should be on display in museums.

The “it belongs in a museum” dialogue suggests a high-minded altruism that doesn’t seem a legitimate part of this man’s character; at least this man’s character as we saw it and knew it in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

For example, in the latter film, he was depicted trading a relic for a diamond -- from a gangster -- in the opening sequence, and he considered keeping the Sankara Stone for reasons of “fortune and glory.”

Does this sound like a guy who sees a relic and knee-jerks “It belongs in a museum!”

The whole “it belongs in a museum” ret-con seems not only two-dimensional and inaccurate given the history of the character as we’ve witnessed it with our own eyes…it seems developmentally arrested, psychologically-speaking. 

In terms of its characters, I also find that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusades boasts highs and lows.  Sallah was used as comic relief in Raiders, no doubt, but he was also a serious-minded fellow who felt “real.”  We got to know his family, at least a little, and his sense of commitment to Indy.  Here, Sallah obsessively collects camels for his brother-in law.  But okay, it’s nice to see him.

Marcus Brody shifts roles more dramatically, however, from the first movie’s “old-timer” to over-the-top comic relief.  In Raiders, he was a man who declared that if he were a few years younger, he would have gone after the Ark of the Covenant himself.  Those are his own words!  Here, here is a ninny who once “got lost” in his own museum, and sticks out in the field like a sore thumb. 

Again, much of the sense of nuance or maturity is drained out of the proceedings for the purpose of easy laughs.  Brody has gone from being an interesting, layered guy to being a convenient joke, and I don’t feel it reflects well on the film.

The film’s villain, however, is one that I can and do appreciate.  Donovan (Julian Glover) is a perfect example of the “brains heavy”-type of villainous character featured frequently in serials of the 1930s and 1940s.  He doesn’t play a big role in the story, but shows up at the end, essentially, to reveal his nasty machinations.  Of all the main characters in the film, Donovan is also the only one for whom human connection like family, friendship, and patriotism mean absolutely nothing. He desires immortality, but is loyal to no man and no country in his quest to attain it.  If the Cup of Christ is about the glory of God, Donovan is about the enrichment and glory of himself, and that’s not a bad message for the Yuppified, conspicuous consumption 1980s.

In my opinion, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade reaches its zenith, however, when it adheres to the theme about father and sons.  Indiana Jones has felt alienated from his father his whole life. Indeed, that is the informing issue of Indy’s existence.  He has been forced to seek out external validation -- “fortune and glory” in pursuit of relics -- because he has never had the approbation, or even attention, of Henry Jones.  Indy has attempted to outdo his own father by acquiring those relics but has never been able to live up to him in his own mind.

This leitmotif is excavated and illustrated perfectly in the quest for the Holy Grail.  The film thus asks: what is immortality?  Is it fortune and glory, as Donovan and Elsa believe, or is it something else?  Does real illumination come, finally, from understanding your connection to those you love? To humbling yourself before someone you love because that emotional connection is more important than ego?

Certainly, the tests Indy faces are all about being humbled in the presence of a “father.”  Only a penitent man can pass the first test.  The second tests requires following in the foot-steps of God, as a pious man (like Henry) would.  And the last test is the most important of all.  It involves taking a grand leap of faith, and here one might contextualize that leap as not believing only in God, but believing in your father’s love…despite his foibles and flaws.

This conceit reaches its apex in the Grail cavern at the end of the film, when Elsa dies to acquire the Cup of Christ rather than safeguard her own life.  All she cares about is what she can acquire, and the status she gains from that acquisition. 

But delightfully, Spielberg repeats Elsa’s death scene, virtually shot-for-shot, this time with Indy playing her role.  He reaches out to grab the Grail, and won’t give it up, just as Elsa refused to give it up.  But then Indy hears the soothing words and voice of his father, and is literally pulled back from the precipice. 

And, it is not only his body perched on that cliff, but his soul too.

As a father (and as a son too…), I love this leitmotif, but submit that it would have carried even more resonance, without the “it belongs in a museum” refrain.   If we legitimately believed Indiana Jones might choose wrongly at the end of the film, Last Crusade would generate much more tension and suspense.  Instead, this moment -- despite the great staging -- is not all it could be.  It should carry even more emotional power than it does.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’s leitmotif of children seeking and finding a father recurs throughout the film…even in terms of Elsa.  Her symbolic father, it is clear, is Adolf Hitler.  Indiana Jones bumps into this frightening historical figure at one point in the film, and his visage is terrifying; monstrous even.  Germany of the Nazis was also known, incidentally, as “The Fatherland” and is referred to as such in the film.  So while Indiana Jones passes his test in the Grail Cavern, Elsa -- lacking a suitable father figure -- fails hers.

Elsa's Father.

Indy's father.

There’s a great deal to love about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  River Phoenix gives the performance of his career, and Sean Connery is impressive as Henry Jones.  If George Lucas and Steven Spielberg planned Indiana Jones to be a “new” James Bond figure for the 1980s, then it is appropriate and wonderful to cast the original action star and 007, Connery, as Indy’s Dad.  The action is as harrowing as ever, too, and it’s also a refreshing twist that Indy’s romantic interest is not a girl with a heart of gold this time, but rather a girl with an eye for it.

Yet as I’ve noted above, some elements of the film simply don’t cohere.  The entire story about Indy’s choice between “fortune and glory” and his soul would be stronger without the “it belongs in a museum” preamble, which is blatant revisionism, and paints him as true blue to the core, not someone whose soul is in question.

And the film could use some of the shadowy, noir visuals that made the other films such remarkable visual treats. 

As it stands, there’s something sanitized and a little cartoonish about this entry in the franchise, and so while I like and enjoy Last Crusade just fine, I can’t bring myself to love it as passionately as I do Raiders, or Temple of Doom.  I know others disagree with this assessment, and I look forward to reading their more affirmative case for the third entry in the cycle.

Next Tuesday: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).