The Climactic Moment...
 

At the climax of the movie Quaritch has a knife at Jake's throat and Neytiri shoots Quaritch and saves Jake. Yay! It's marvelous, but every time I watch that scene with Jake dangling a few feet away from Quaritch and Quaritch slowly taking the knife and putting it against Jake's throat I have to ask the question:

Why doesn't Jake just punch Quaritch in the head?

I mean he's right there. And yeah, he's using his hands to hang onto the AMP suit to take weight off his queue, but Quaritch is about to kill him! Just one quick punch with his avatar-strength and Quaritch is either dead or unconscious. Problem solved :)

It's far more dramatic the other way, but still...

Someone pointed this out on Youtube. And also, why didn't he kill Quaritch while he was "rebooting" and putting his exo-pack on?

I suppose you COULD argue that in the first case he had no energy because he wasn't getting enough oxygen in his real body.

The answer is probably more along the lines of "because it's a movie" though.

It may be that he's just not thinking straight at that point. The link is unstable, his mind is alternately in control of his avatar and his real body and he's quickly succumbing to gases poisonous to humans. In the other instance, I think there's a sort of wordless agreement between the two that marks the moment as a temporary truce, a 'breather' before fighting resumes in earnest.

He's having to concentrate enough just to stay conscious - he did well doing as much as he did.

maybe it's some sort of code of honour? don't attack your enemy when he's regaining himself, fight like a real man, make it fair...or some crap like that :P afterall Jake is a jarhead so i assume he got into that sought of mentality

Jake shoulda ripped his exopack off, THEN punched him
:P

Every Marine I know (and I know a few) would tell you to kill your enemy as quickly and easily as you can and never give him a chance to kill you back if you can help it :)

Yeah, this. So very, very, very much this. And Jake's not a nobleman fighting a duel here - he's a soldier. Very different mindset.

(Uh, minus the actually KNOWING Marines, I just read a lot about them)

As to the original question, I got the impression that Jake was actually in a large amount of pain when Quaritch was hauling him up BY HIS HAIR AND NEURAL WHIP. Maybe the queue itself doesn't nerves (the brain doesn't), but OW that has got to hurt. And then you add in the concentration it was taking him to stay conscious, and I'm not sure he was able to process enough to do much.

I wouldn't be surprised if whatever enclosed the queue (some kind of leathery sheath hidden inside the braid?) had a lot of pain receptors.

...yeah, that'd be the rest of my thought that I didn't write. My bad. I assumed that the sheathe (I'm guessing there would be one, as well as the braid) would have sensors on it.

Its a dramatic pause. Sure Jake could of done something. Just like Quaritch could of killed him right away rather than wait 5 minutes.

I don't think it was really 5 min :P, it wasn't even one even in 'movie timescale' where events tend to happen slower for the benefit of looking good on camera (e.g. most countdowns in most films).

I agree it's all about the dramatic pause. I do agree with above posts and I got the impression Jake was in a large amount of pain between being held by the queue and trying to maintain both bodies at the same time.