This time it is personal for Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford).
When his father (Sean Connery) goes missing, Indy is forced to take up his quest for the legendary Holy Grail…
“I didn’t come for the cup of Christ, I came for my father.”
I have probably seen this movie the most of the series. Being a James Bond fan as a kid, any movie starring Sean Connery was in my wheelhouse.
Watching Last Crusade after the films which followed it reinforces how much its shadow continues to loom over the franchise. Raiders of the Lost Ark is a perfect machine of mass entertainment, while Temple of Doom the darker, more violent sequel. Last Crusade is a personal story about family reconnecting.
It seems like later filmmakers saw the film (and its success) as a blueprint they could follow.
Raiders did not really dwell on a personal story, managing to thread the romance within the beats of its chase narrative. But its brevity feels like bottled lightning - a one-off miracle of casting, economical scripting and deft direction that cannot be replicated.
The focus on a personal story is an obvious way into a genre.
In the two years before Last Crusade, Lethal Weapon and Die Hard had proved the viability of this approach to critical and commercial success.
There was a sea change going on in American action movies, probably a reaction to the impervious one-man army archetype of Stallone and Schwarzenegger.
Characters like Riggs and McClane were fighting inner demons as well as external villains.
They also feel like they are children of Harrison Ford’s star persona, particularly as in action-oriented roles.
That everyman quality, that sense that he is not exactly sure of what he is doing, is built into the DNA of these action heroes.
It is probably too close in terms of these various movies’ releases to call it a direct influence, but adding a personal dimension to Last Crusade was the hook that got this version made over all the others (tying these two threads together, screenwriter Jeffrey Boam would go onto contribute to the Lethal Weapon franchise).
Anyway, onto the movie.
Rewatching the cold open - featuring a young Indy on his first adventure - feels like an unintentional parody of every crappy prequel that has followed.
We get origins for all the familiar elements: His fear of snakes, the scar on Ford/Indy’s chin, the appearance of the hat which leads into the match cut that reintroduces Ford.
It is a breezy, fun sequence that does not feel belaboured in hitting the familiar tropes. They instead feel like punchlines, punctuating each set-piece. Even the way the score avoids the familiar theme until we see Ford’s face feels organic and satisfying.
River Phoenix has a great time, echoing Ford’s mannerisms (even down to the way his hands shake when he is reaching for something) without coming off as a straight imitation.
The film was intended as a reaction to Temple of Doom, and boy does it feel like it.
We are back at the university with Marcus, we have another desert adventure with Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), and we are back fighting Nazis.
To the film’s credit, it holds off on introducing these elements - it starts out as a mystery, slowly re-introducing the familiar elements.
Ilsa’s betrayal is hard to gauge.
I have not watched the movie in a while, but I have seen it enough times in the past that it had an impact.
Watching the films so close together, she is clearly meant to be misdirection - she has a combative attitude, parrying Indy’s attempts at flirtation - clearly an attempt to set her up as an analogue for Marion.
They have some chemistry, but it feels based in Lust rather than any deeper attraction.
To the film’s credit, it makes some attempt to humanise Elsa - her tears at the book burning; her relief that Indy is alive.
But she has been so mendacious that it is hard to see these moments as anything.
If anything these moments of humanity make her even more monstrous than Walter Donovan - she is not unaware of selling her soul, and knows what it is costing her.
Indy’s final attempt to save her shows he is still a good man, trying to save someone he loves.
It is an interesting wrinkle in terms of the villainous dynamic.
Like the central relationship, the film is trying to flesh out archetypes - in this case, the evil Bond girl.
In that respect, Elsa is both a new spin on a love interest in the franchise, and a deconstruction of a Bondian trope.
The castle sequence is the moment the movie finds its footing - not just with the reveal of the Nazis, but where the film turns into a full-on action community.
We start with the business of Ford playing a Scottish lord, which feels like some kind of in-joke from the set - maybe Ford did a Connery impression and they decided to put it in?
“If you are Scottish Lord then I am Mickey Mouse!”
After 47 mins, Sean Connery is finally introduced, brain-ing his onscreen son with a pot.
Having grown up with this movie, the reveal carries no weight any more. It must have carried such a charge to have James Bond in the same frame as Indy. And the fact that Connery is playing against certain aspects of his persona:
He is not as physical as his son, more interested in the intellectual game of solving riddles.
The only thing he seems to share with his son is libido.
In contrast to Indy, who cannot help but be empathetic to the people around him, his father is clearly a solo act: Completely focused on his quest.
The quest for the grail becomes a metaphor for their relationship: It has been the defining obsession of the father’s life, and Indy sees it as a sign of his neglect.
I think it is a tribute to the way this relationship is written and performed that it never bogs down the movie.
This movie understands its tone, and knows how to thread this relationship without losing its comic touch.
Once the Joneses are together, the resemblance to Raiders becomes more acute - not just in terms of the iconography (Nazis, Sallah) but in its rhythm, the way we move from setpiece to setpiece, from joke to joke, from one near-death experience to the next.
After the underwhelming endings to the next two instalments, the final moments of Last Crusade are kind of incredible - we get the death of a(n evil) love interest, the reunion between father and son, and a final ride into the sunset. All these seismic events happen within minutes of each other and none of them overshadow any of these others.
What a picture. It cannot help but be a little lightweight compared to the original, but Last Crusade is pure fun.
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