Barrow Gang
In General
- Anti-Hero: Everybody in the gang (sans Blanche) is a partner in hijacking cars and robbing banks supposedly to rebel against The Great Depression, but they're more self-centered than that. Yet despite their aspects, they're still painted in a sympathetic light.
- Moral Myopia: The gang don't think they're doing anything particularly wrong, but those jerks who try to stop them from robbing banks, they were totally asking to be shot. (Of course, some of their enemies are jerks, but it isn't trying to stop murderous robbers that makes them so.)
- Two Girls to a Team: Bonnie and Blanche are the token women within the Barrow Gang, compared to the Barrow brothers and C.W.
The Titular Duo
- Affably Evil: The two are about the nicest bank robbers you'd ever meet.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Bonnie and Clyde are portrayed in a sympathetic light, and their deaths are meant to come off as tragic.
- Arch-Enemy: They're this to Sheriff Frank Hamer since they humiliated him and he vows to capture or kill them.
- Historical Beauty Update: While Bonnie and Clyde weren't ugly, they didn't hold a candle to Dunaway and Beatty, two of Hollywood's most glamorous heartthrobs of the era.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: A big offender. The film's Bonnie and Clyde has more in common with bank robbers John Dillinger and "Pretty Boy" Floyd, who were also active at the time and held considerably more public sympathy, whereas the public eventually grew tired of Bonnie and Clyde's constant violence and called for their deaths.
- Multiple Gunshot Death: How Bonnie and Clyde get killed by the police. Truth in Television — the police went for There Is No Kill Like Overkill because they were that much of The Dreaded.
- Outlaw Couple: Take a wild guess.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Bonnie and Clyde behave as a couple even though Clyde cannot have sex. On the day before their deaths, however, Clyde finally manages to perform.
- Stop, or I Will Shoot!: Bonnie and Clyde are gunned down without warning in a police ambush. This was Truth in Television. It should be noted that Barrow had shot his way out of several previous attempts to capture him, and his gang had killed nine lawmen and several civilians during their crime spree.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The final scene, where a posse guns down Bonnie and Clyde and fires many, many shots at them. Truth in Television, too- that was how their death was in real life.
- Villain Protagonist: The title characters are robbers and killers. Even so, the film's portrayal of them is considerably softer than the real Bonnie and Clyde.
Bonnie Parker
Portrayed by: Faye Dunaway
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: After the first time he holds up a store with her, Bonnie immediately tries to jump Clyde's bones.
- Hidden Depths: Bonnie writes poetry about their misdeeds, which was Truth in Television.
- Historical Badass Upgrade: Bonnie takes an active role in the gang's robberies in the film. In real-life, there is no evidence she participated in any of the gang's robberies. While there are multiple eyewitness accounts of her participating in several of the gang's gunfights against the police, there is no known evidence anyone was hit or killed by her gunfire.
- Small Town Boredom: Bonnie's introduction has her flopping around her bed in boredom. Clyde acknowledges that boredom was her primary reason to join him.
Clyde Barrow
Portrayed by: Warren Beatty
- Historical Hero Upgrade: The real Clyde was a Control Freak with a Hair-Trigger Temper that bordered on Ax-Crazy at worst. He often robbed and assaulted bystanders during bank robberies, killed both police and civilians at the slightest provocation, and left hostages tied to trees in the woods. His gang members noted this ruthlessness; In an interview with Playboy, W.D. Jones described Clyde as willing to kill anyone "in a hot instant" and claimed Clyde had once threatened to kill him over not changing a tire quickly enough. One gang member not portrayed in the film, Raymond Hamilton, left the gang out of disputes over money and viewed Clyde as too violent to stay with.
C.W. Moss
Portrayed by: Michael J. Pollard
- Composite Character: His character is basically a cross between W.D. Jones and the man who is believed to have betrayed Bonnie and Clyde, Henry Methvin. Other gang members are omitted.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: He suddenly disappears from the story midway with no insight on what came of him, how he reacted to the titular duo's death, or whether or not he get arrested for his part on the robberies.
Buck Barrow
Portrayed by: Gene Hackman
- Historical Hero Upgrade: He was described as the most hot-tempered of the Barrows, often advocating killing hostages and once tied two police officers they had captured to a tree with barbed wire, something that even Clyde found distasteful. Buck often got into heated arguments with Clyde, as he was uncomfortable taking orders from his younger brother. Nothing of the sort is portrayed in the film.
- Plucky Comic Relief: He's the life of the party in the Barrow Gang who's responsible for some of the movie's most uplifting and funny moments. When the Barrow Gang kidnaps Eugene and Velma, Buck keeps the mood jolly:
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Even though there are plenty of grim moments throughout the movie, it's when Buck dies that things truly start to get serious. Buck's death (and Blanche's capture) signals the end of the liveliness of the Barrow Gang, and therefore the end of its life.
Blanche Barrow
Portrayed by: Estelle Parsons
- Eye Scream: Blanche gets shot in the eye and later ends up blind in a hospital. In real-life, she actually got it from shards of flying glass due to a shootout in Platte City in July 1933.
- The Load: Her screaming confirms to the cops the gang is holed up and starts a shoot out, Buck trying to keep her safe keeps him running back and forth in danger, her being separated means they have to pick her up. Once on the run, she constantly complains, trying to get her husband out of the gang then demanding an equal share despite doing nothing to help the robberies.
- Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Blanche Barrow is portrayed as The Load in contrast to Bonnie Parker and, in the real Blanche's own words, "a screaming horse's ass." Significant in that the two male leads, Clyde Barrow and Buck Barrow, aren't foiled against each other to the same extreme.
- Screaming Woman: Blanche, much to the chagrin of the rest of the gang (especially Bonnie), as well as to the real-life Blanche. The film deliberately played this up in order to make Bonnie seem "cooler". It angered the real Blanche so much that she sued Warner Bros. over her portrayal.
- Token Good Teammate: Downplayed, considering she goes along with the gang despite their shady business, but she's the only member of the gang who doesn't willingly take part in the robberies or even had any say in joining the gang. She's just there because she's the wife of Buck Barrow, making her sort of a Punch-Clock Villain. Also, it was stated that she was a preacher's daughter, and married Buck when he was a reformed ex-con. She clearly wanted no part in his life of crime.
Additional Historical Characters
Frank Hamer
- Historical Villain Upgrade: He's portrayed in the film as a bumbling, spiteful idiot who allows himself to be made into a jackass by the protagonists and their friends. In real life, he was a Texas Ranger hired out of retirement by prison system administrator Lee Simmons to hunt them down after the gang led a prison break, and never personally interacted with them before the shootout in May 23, 1934 where Bonnie and Clyde were killed. The film shows Hamer and his men gunning down Clyde when he is unarmed and outside his car, while in real life both Bonnie and Clyde were inside their car when they were shot, and the vehicle was filled with weapons.note Hamer's surviving family was so outraged at the negative, buffoonish portrayal they filed a lawsuit against Warner Bros. for defamation; the movie studio settled out-of-court.
- Spiteful Spit: After Bonnie kisses Hamer for the posed photo, he spits in her face.
Fictional Characters
Ivan Moss
Eugene Grizzard and Velma Davis
