Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a 1989 film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Julian Glover, Alison Doody, River Phoenix and John Rhys-Davies. more...

This film is the third released, though the twenty-fifth chronologically, in a series of film and TV productions about the adventures of the heroic fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones.

When Dr. Henry Jones Sr. (played by Sean Connery) vanishes while pursuing a life-long search for the Holy Grail, Indiana must retrace his father's steps in the hopes of rescuing him — and the Grail — from the clutches of the Nazi military machine.

Plot summary

The movie starts in 1912 with Indy (Phoenix) as a Boy Scout in a failed attempt to retrieve the Cross of Coronado from grave robbers. The small adventure inspires his whip, fear of snakes, fedora (and style of dress), and even the scar on his chin. The story then advances to 1938; Indy (Ford), now a grown man, is successful in getting the Cross and donating it to Marcus Brody's (Elliott) museum.

Walter Donovan (Glover) informs Indy that Henry Jones Sr., his father (Connery), vanished while searching for the missing half of a clue leading to the Holy Grail, which has the power to grant eternal life. Indy and Marcus travel to Venice to meet Dr. Elsa Schneider (Doody) to follow the footsteps of his father. Inside the library (a converted church which is actually the Church of San Barnaba in Campo San Barnaba) where his father was last seen, Indy discovers the tomb of a knight of the "Last Crusade" which holds information needed to begin the quest for the Grail. Indy encounters a secret and fanatical religious cult determined to protect the Grail at all costs. The cult leader, Kazim, tells him that his father is being held in Brunwald Castle near the Austrian-German border.

In Germany, Indiana finds his father but both find themselves being betrayed by both Schneider and Donovan. Indy discovers that both work for the Nazis and that his father's kidnapping was staged to get him to solve the mystery of the Grail for them. Indy and his father escape the Nazis and go to Berlin, to retrieve his father's Grail diary needed to complete the quest. Meanwhile, the Nazis capture Brody, somewhere in Turkey, and learn where to start the Grail quest.

Donovan and Schneider, with Brody, begin the Grail quest on one path, as does Indy with his father and Sallah on another, and the cult on yet another. Eventually, their individual quests cross paths and lead to a confrontation where cult leader Kazim is killed by Donovan's men and a desert chase that reunites Indy and his father with Brody and Sallah.

The quest reaches its climax at the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, in Hatay near Iskenderun, where the Holy Temple (secret home to the Grail) is located. Donovan captures Indy in the temple and shoots Indy's father, forcing him to face a set of challenges and retrieve the Grail for its healing powers to save his father's life. Indy, guided by his father's diary, surpasses the challenges, arriving in a room with the Holy Grail hidden amongst many false grails and a knight of the last Crusade surviving by the Grail's power. Donovan and Schneider immediately follow Indy. Schneider then picks out a golden, bejeweled grail which Donovan drinks from. The grail was a false one and Donovan is killed very grotesquely, aging into dust.

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