Basic Trope: A character tries to bribe someone, but it makes the situation worse.
- Straight: Police Officer John Doe tries to arrest Bob. Bob offers him money to let him go, but John refuses the bribe and adds attempting to bribe an officer to the list of charges.
- Exaggerated: Officer John is so offended by the bribe that he tries to kill Bob.
- Downplayed: Officer John refuses the bribe, but just gives Bob an angry glare in response.
- Justified:
- Officer John is an honorable man with strong morals.
- Officer John knows that Internal Affairs will throw the book at him (and it's a thick book) if they so much as think he took a bribe.
- Officer John is not a vengeful man by nature, but in John Doe's case he really wishes to put him behind bars.
- Officer John is too corrupt for Bob to bribe. He will just take the money ("What money?") and give him nothing in return.
- Inverted: Officer John asks Bob for a bribe. Bob refuses and drives off without even being fined.
- Subverted:
- Officer John refuses the bribe, but later changes his mind after Bob offers more money.
- Officer John reads Bob the riot act for trying to bribe a Police Officer, then accepts the bribe anyway.
- Double Subverted: Officer John appears to accept the bribe and walks away. But he was just putting the money away as evidence and is quickly back to arrest Bob for trying to bribe an officer.
- Parodied:
- Officer John is a card-carrying member of the honest policeman's club, and he shows Bob his card. The bribe is of course refused.
- Bob attempts a Comically Small Bribe on Officer John, and regardless of where he stands morally, John is insulted that Bob thinks he will sell himself out for so little and throws the book at him.
- Zig-Zagged: After putting the bribe money away as evidence, Officer John comes back with his partner, and Bob then attempts to bribe the partner, who seemingly accepts it, only to come back after putting that money away as evidence too. Bob tries to bribe the chief, but he just takes the money and does nothing. And when Bob tries to bribe the judge, he takes the money and almost lets him go… but he has a heart attack before saying he's not guilty, there is no documentation of what his sentence was going to be, and the replacement judge is definitely better off not trying to bribe.
- Averted:
- Officer John accepts the bribe.
- Bob doesn't try to bribe Officer John.
- Enforced: The producers don't want the police to look bad.
- Lampshaded: After Bob tries to bribe John, when John doesn't react right away, he realizes that John is going to use the bribe attempt against him and comments as such.
- Invoked:
- Exploited: Alice is trying to get revenge on Bob, so she lies to him that Officer John is easily bribed, knowing what will happen if Bob tries to do so.
- Defied: Bob drops the money in front of Officer John and runs away before John can refuse it.
- Discussed: "Don't bother trying to bribe Officer John, he's too honest and would probably just use it against you."
- Conversed: "Does he really think that Officer John will accept that?"
- Implied: When Bob is about to get arrested, he plots with his friend to bribe the officer to get away. The scene cuts mid-sentence to the two of them sitting in a jail cell.
- Played for Laughs:
- Officer John muses that he'd have accepted the bribe if he threw in some donuts, but because Bob didn't...
- Officer John tells Bob that bribing him is useless; "I'll just steal everything from the evidence locker after I toss you in the slammer, punk!"
- Played for Horror: Bob is unsuccessfully attempting to Bribe a madman who's torturing him to stop.
Back to Bribe Backfire
