Based on an idea by Spielberg’s good friend George Lucas (of Star Wars
fame), Raiders of the Lost Ark is a fun thrill ride of a movie that doesn’t
pretend to be anything more than what it is, which is an opportunity to spend
two hours in the dark with a lot of other people enjoying oneself. The time in
the 1930s and the hero is Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford with the look
(deliberate I’m sure) of Humphrey Bogart with an unshaven face, leather jacket,
and worn fedora. He’s an archeologist, but he seems to be more skilled with a
gun and a whip than he is a pick and brush. Not that it matters. The Nazis are
in Egypt and
they are after the Ark of the Covenant, the mystic powers of which they intend
to use for world conquest. That is, unless Indy gets to it first.
There’s a girl, of course, Marion Ravenwood, played with spunky panache by
Karen Allen, and a side kick, Sallah, played by the great Welsh character actor
John Rhys-Davies. And there are villains to burn, including Indy’s rival, a
French archeologist Rene Balloq, played by Paul Freeman, as well as Ronald
Lacey and Wolf Kahler as Nazi thugs.
The real fun of Raiders lay in the cliff hanger situations Indy and his
friends keep finding themselves in. That is especially true of the truck chase
toward the latter third of the movie in which Indy cheats death, by my count, a
couple of dozen times. The film is full of fun little vignettes, like what Indy
does when the Egyptian thug confronts him with a giant scimitar.
Don’t see this film for the logic or consistency. (For instance, since Egypt
was run by the Brits at the time of the film, why didn’t they just boot the
Nazis out of the country? Well, if they had, there would be no movie.) Watch it
for the great fun you’ll have.