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Yeah, that made me laugh too.
anything, that "defense" is only going to get you killed faster, but poor Roy didn't seem to know that.
Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. - Bill Maher

The character is serious, but the viewer is supposed to laugh at his naivete, while also being sympathetic to someone in such a dismal situation. The line doesn't really work b/c it draws you out of the movie to ask just your question, but it's not an elegant or interesting enough idea to merit presence in the movie. It's the most cringworthy part of a movie that has its share of cringeworthy moments, but not for the the geopolitical narcissism of the filmmakers. Plus, one can't really know what they'll say in such situations and being an "American" does have more cache in those situations because the US is surely the most extreme, capable, and adept at administering martial, financial, and diplomatic retribution around the globe. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq. And again, the line is in keeping with his mid-western golden boy character.
A correction: the US is "the" most powerful country in the world, not "one of the". A point of fact not pride.

"You can't do this to us, we're American!!"
That one line quite brilliantly (and economically) conveyed just how naive Roy was. Do I know people like that? Sure, and so do most of you.
PS: A hundred years ago, the line could have been: "You can't do this to us, we're British!!" and a hundred years before that: "You can't do this to us, we're French!!" Enough said? I hope so.
Interested in collaborating on a new type of film rating system? Contact me.

I didn't laugh, but I can see why some would. It is like black comedy I guess, laughing at their foolishness for their thinking their citizenship should protect them. When they say we are american they should be saying we are humans, sadly that may not mean much to some people either.
How am I not myself?

At first I found the line stupid, but I believe that his intention was to state that they as foreign citizens have rights and are to be treated according to international laws. The line just came out goofy and should have been rewritten. Or ditched.
Do Americans really feel more protected because of their foreign policies? Well, some do I guess and some don't. I would like to think that my country (Denmark) would do what it could to help me, should I accidently end up in a siberian beep (or just a simple cartoon-misunderstanding about bombs and turbans).
*** IMDB beeped me. The line was 'siberian gangster/drugs/beep-up. Figure out the beep yourself. ***

I was kind of taken aback by this line too (I'm American) but I think what Roy was getting at is that they stand out in Russia because they are American and it would be noticeable if they were missing. At least that's what I tell myself to be convinced that Roy wasn't an idiot. Except his character is a littlenaive, I guess. I don't know; just throwing that out there.
I think beep just happens, but that's just me.

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Nobody in America really cared one way or the other. The thing is in Spain, and probably most of the rest of the world, you apparently obsess about America and American culture. Here, I hate to say it, most Americans don't give a moment's thought about the rest of the world. We sort of like British TV shows and music, and that's about it. The rest of the world is a quaint Disneyland to us. Sorry to burst your bubble that Americans were somehow sitting around thinking about that line one way or the other. The reality is most Americans didn't see this movie, those that did forgot it two minutes after it ended, and those that did certainly didn't think about that line at all. But we're glad the line gave you a few moments of escape from your life of bullfighting and poverty though

I laughed because of how stupid and arrogant it was.

like Roy & Jessie would never say that.
But to most Americans who rarely travel outside the U.S. this would seem like a reasonable protest to make. It would seem like a realistic statement to most Americans.

It's meant to be kinda funny, yes. But it's also something someone might say in a situation like that. They're under the impression that this is how Russians take care of business. They don't yet know that Ben Kingsley's character is a crooked cop.
Plus, the movie recognized that this was a humorous line. That's why Ben Kingsley's character said, "They're American. Shoot him in the knee."

In Taiwan,ROC ,we all laughed at that line.
How naive it sounds.

Yes it was meant to be funny and yes there is a perception that all Americans think they are untouchable and the words "we're American" will solve all problems.
I'm not sure where this perception came from.
I almost came as a Shark actually, but then I realised that an Eagle was slightly better.

i am an american. when i heard that line i sort or raised and eyebrow and chuckled. i thought "is that supposed to mean something"?
i didn't know if they were supposed to be under the impression that their american origin somehow made them important or if they wanted the other people to think "hey someone is going to come down hard on this place if these americans go missing".

Woody was definitely voicing the American hubris that "hey, we're a protected species!" It would have been less ambiguous if Ilya had just laughed sarcastically instead of saying, "Let's Go!"

I always chuckle when I heard that line - it seems to have a long tradition in the movies anyway. I also think most of the time its meant in a humorous way and not seriously.

We were three people from sweden watching this movie tonight. We also thought it was funny.
Its like: -You cant kill us, were americans

As an American, I totally got your original point that many Americans have an almost abstract view of catastrophe. It's something that happens to other people.
It not only makes us feel invulnerable, I think it also makes us insensitive to the suffering of others outside America.
Of course, this is probably not just an American thing but we should only speak for ourselves.

No no no, please don't get me wrong. I didn't try to say it's an exclusive privilege of being a US citizen. Even though I've been to other countries, I feel I can only speak on my views and observations and things that I've witnessed in my home country. As well as casual conversations I have had with foreign nationals. I possess no education or experience in Foreign Governments and was simply trying to offer up my opinion as an everyday, John Q. Public American as to why the character said what he did out of desperation.
Plus, if you watch a lot of movies like The Ruins, Turistas, Trade, Taken, or Hostel you will see a lot of Americans in foreign countries making really bad, incredibly naive choices and then say, "But we're americans?"
And for the people that say, "Oh these are just bad movies.", think of the 18 year old American girl from Alabama who went missing in Aruba back in 2005. She appears to have been a gullible, ignorant girl who smoked pot and drank with some locals and now she is gone forever because she most likely thought "that nothing bad could happen". We know her story because she came from money and her parents offered up a huge reward and her stepfather had a little political influence. Imagine all the stories we don't hear about.

All the points you state are also true for most of europe - I guess we're also spoiled by our countries
I'm saying this, because you (from my point of view) seem to imply that this is an almost exclusive privilege of being a US citizen, which is of course false and sort of nails the point home of the thread starter.

buddy6102, was that post intentionally funny cause I laughed at just about every point you made. Thanks for the chuckle.

As an American I can tell you that we are truly spoiled by our Constitution. We've never had to worry about our homes being invaded or being "questioned" by corrupt police officers. Most of us have never known poverty, starvation or desperation. Things like kidnapping, organized crime, and human trafficking are federal crimes and they rarely enter our personal radar and if they do it's only on the news and we are only shown how the FBI has "broken it up". Never that it's ongoing.
But as my wife, who's from Mexico City, says all the time, "Gringos never think that anything bad can happen to them."
So yeah we chuckled a little bit but kinda understood it.