I think this is a distinction between comedy and non-comedy genres.

There are many examples of protags in American comedies who never get their way -- Party Down, Seinfeld, Always Sunny. Part of this is the need for American sitcoms to maintain the status quo over dozens of episodes / several seasons.

You rarely see Hollywood action heroes who are beset with unrelenting disappointment -- they usually go through hell, but by the end of the third act, achieve some sort of triumph.

A notable counterexample is Sicario, but I wouldn't call it a "Hollywood action movie."

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drdec 4 hours ago | parent [-]

In the first Indiana Jones, the hero makes no positive contribution to the outcome in the end. He is just along for the ride.

To be fair, it requires a little bit of thinking to see. The general audience might see it as success because the outcome was "good" even if it had nothing to do with anything Jones did.

	▲	owisd 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		After the Nazis opened the Ark, Jones was able to tell the Americans where to pick it up from. Otherwise when the Nazis sent a crew to look for the missing men they’d have just found and taken the Ark again.
	▲	krapp 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		>In the first Indiana Jones, the hero makes no positive contribution to the outcome in the end. He is just along for the ride. I think that's just bad script writing.