James said:
As for Indy cooperating with the Russians, I saw that as his passion for knowledge taking over. He reverts to professor mode several times in the film, and it's clearly evident when he is wrapped up in solving Oxley's riddles. Remember, this is an archaeological find that he once risked his own life trying to discover. It's entirely logical for him to become so wrapped up in the quest, that he momentarily forgets the larger predicament.
If the movie had explained Indy's "mood swings" as well as you do for it, I would never have had a problem, but I just don't see much of that in the actual film. Indy's passion for knowledge doesn't really account for the fact that five minutes after saying, "Drop dead, comrade" he's leading everyone to the crate. Yes, there are explanations that can be made, and he was buying time but I think just some moment of him being obviously reluctant to lead the Soviets to what they wanted would have made a world of difference. This is after all the same movie that goes on to display to us Indy's unbending patriotism, even in the face of false accusations and a mandatory leave of absence from his job. The fact of the matter is that Indy did willfully help KGB agents rob the military warehouse of the object they were after, and the movie didn't do a good enough of job of explaining to us why Indy let it go as far as it did. If there was just one extra line in there, or any attempt at an explanation that played into the character traits you discussed above, we wouldn't even be having this argument.
One of the very first things we learned about Indy (in the opening of ROTLA) is that he is not the best judge of character.
Absolutely, and they carry that character flaw through all the films. I was very amused when Mac first revealed his betrayal to Indy, since it showed that Indy never got any better in this regard and still, as Belloq puts it, chooses the wrong friends. What I won't do though is use the fact that I liked
that moment to defend the poor handling of Mac as a character after the Hangar 51 scene, just like I wouldn't use Indy's tendency to get wrapped up in his quest to forgive pretty blatant and frustrating issues that, corrected, could have otherwise yielded better scenes. A person actively looking for problems in a movie will no doubt find them, just like anything can be explained if you're desperate enough to provide an explanation. Nothing changes what's actually in the movie.
He realizes he cannot immediately escape, and if he must assist the Russians, it's going to be on his own terms. When the opportunity to formulate a plan presents itself, we see him immediately switch back into survival mode.
To me this section of the movie is matter of poor execution rather than a lack of understanding of the character. The idea of Indy being in over his head and always "making things up as he goes along" may have been well represented in the warehouse scene, but it wasn't handled as well as it ought to have been. I think the main problem is that the audience was ahead of the script. When we see Indy asking for the Russian's ammunition, the first thing that came to our heads (or a lot of people's heads, I think) was "Aha, Indy's up to something!" because that's exactly the sort of trickery we'd expect Indy to be pulling. At that point we're paying attention to see what Indy has up his sleeve with what appears to be some sort of ruse to outsmart the bad guys. When it turns out that, no, the request for gunpowder really was just exactly what it appeared to be, it was disappointing. It was an issue of the audience being able to come up with a better situation for Indy than the screenplay was, and in real time, not in retrospect after thinking things through (which is the kind of scrutiny we know an Indiana Jones film isn't meant to survive under anyway). A lot of the entertainment in the previous films comes from the surprise of what happens compared to what we expected. In Indy4 there were too many occasions where, at best, scenes played out exactly as we would have assumed. (See: waterfalls)
The follow-up moment of Indy punching the guy while he was distracted was not out of character, but it was definitely anticlimactic. The thing is, even though Indy's plans are often desperate and never work out exactly right, he's still always
thinking. That Indy's punching gambit really was the only thing he had cooked up while helping the Russians in the warehouse is simply wasted potential. Like, in Temple of Doom when Indy cut the rope bridge, his options were limited and his actions reflected that, but it was also a creative, unexpected solution to a problem we were actually interested in. Punching that guy in the warehouse while he wasn't looking just doesn't cut it. The fact that it can be explained by examples of Indy's behavior in the past movies doesn't change the fact that it was an utterly unexciting moment where an exciting one should have been in its place.
Again, it's not the
idea that's the problem, it's just that it should have been more to it, or should have been a payoff to better material. It's in a way my same issue with the Ugha warriors scene. The
idea was good, and they could have ended it the exact same way, with Oxley holding the skull up. It didn't necessarily need to have Indy being some sort of superhuman badass and leading everyone to safety. But they didn't even
try to make a scene out of it, to explore any of the infinite possibilities anyone with an imagination can pull out of a situation with Indy being captured by a bunch of natives. At all. In the 80s Spielberg would never have gotten away with making a scene as expensive as that without milking it for what it was worth. It's also not an issue of it being overtly
bad. I don't think there's any
bad scene in Indy4, but I got so tired of seeing mediocre ones that something crazy and totally out of left field (successful or unsuccessful) would have been welcomed.