Raiders of the Lost Ark Good vs. Evil Quotes

Indy's a good guy, but as we observed in the "Cast" section, he's possessed of a little moral ambiguity. The lines are clearly drawn in this movie. It's just that some characters edge a little closer to them than others. Indy's willing to step into some shadows that another character, say, Sallah, wouldn't. Belloq plays a similar trick, which we'll talk about in a bit.

The interesting part of this quote is the "prepared to pay handsomely" part. As if Indy is doing this solely for the money. Certainly there's a whiff of the mercenary to it, but Indy never talks about money at any other time. Again, it gives him a little moral shading without ever making us question whose side he's on.

As if the sight of a cackling man in black leather fingering an instrument of torture weren't enough. This is a pretty obvious quote, but notice how we don't actually have to see Toht do anything to show us how evil he is. It's all in the actor's delivery: that workaday casualness that says he does this sort of thing all the time. You don't have to show us anything more than that.

Belloq's exaggerating a little here, but he does understand the temptations of the Dark Side—the bad things Indy's done and might like to do—and the fact that Indy really doesn't like being reminded of that. In literary terms, that's one of the purposes of Evil: to tempt Good with the things that Good really wants in order to test Good's resolve.

This is a reflection of methodology rather than morals. The bad guys, aka the Nazis, are running around the countryside in tanks and Jeeps, ordering the locals around in huge groups and generally making a mess of things. Indy and Sallah, on the other hand, are like mice in a den of lions: sneaking around very carefully and trying as hard as they can not to draw attention.

Thank you Dietrich for reminding us what authentic Bad Guy Dialogue is supposed to sound like!

Having tempted Indy in the bar with the allure of moral equivalency, Belloq suddenly draws a very clear line between himself and the "real" bad guys. Clearly, he's living in denial. He's going to hand the Ark over to them, after all, and his hypocrisy may be the most damning thing about him. Contrast that with Indy, who does a lot of soul searching in the film and confronts his failings rather than deny them like Belloq does.

We're not sure what to make of Katanga initially. Is he going to be true to the cause of right, or will he grab what he can and run when the chips are down, just like Satipo? With this line, he silences our doubts and reminds us that everybody in Raiders eventually has to pick a side.

This is a weird line and not just because the guy delivering it swallows a fly midway through. Belloq suggests that Indy's in it for the money (though he kind of is) and then shakes his head at how a guy supposedly cashing a check is willing to hang onto the side of a submarine to do right. Good guys, apparently, don't keep office hours.

What makes this a terrifying but wildly satisfying scene is that the bad guys get what's coming to them big time while the good guys survive. Not only that, but they get it from God Almighty himself. How validating is that for Indy?

We're not entirely sure that the two U.S. Army Intelligence offers are on team Good Guy here. What are they doing to the Ark? Why won't they tell Indy what's happening to it? Like the others, they eventually choose a side. Keeping the Ark locked up is probably the right call, but there's more ambiguity with them than perhaps any other figures in the film.