Teeth Clenched Teamwork / Film

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Films — Animation

• Ichy and Dil, the Big Bad Duumvirate of The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists. Ichy is too small to accomplish much, but points Dil, who is nearly blind, in the direction of food for them both; they make it clear that they are partners, not friends, and only stay together out of necessity. Their Villain Song even centers on how much they hate each other.
• A villainous example from My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks is the Dazzlings. The three of them were banished to the human world, and need each other's magic necklaces to feed off of the hatred and anger of Canterlot High's students. But none of them seem particularly happy with each other's company. Aria and Sonata seem particularly prone to bickering between themselves.
• Secret Magic Control Agency: The SMCA deems Hansel and Gretel to be the most suitable people to track down the king, and instructs them to work together. The siblings immediately state that they can't stand each other; they haven't spoken in years, and Gretel resents Hansel for becoming a con man instead of sticking to the honesty that their parents wanted to instill in them.
• Woody and Buzz Lightyear in the first Toy Story. Woody consistently fails to convince Buzz that he's really a children's toy, while Buzz is angry that Woody caused them to be knocked out of a window because of his jealousy over being replaced in Andy's eyes. They get over it, but not before some serious Character Development from both of them.

Films — Live-Action

• This is the whole point of most zombie movies, especially those made by or remade from George Romero. Night of the Living Dead (1968) started the trend, with the zombies providing constant pressure on a house full of strangers who fight over what to do while passing the Idiot Ball back and forth like a hot potato.
• Advance to the Rear: Played for Laughs. Neither Brackenbury nor Heath can stand each other, to the point where Brackenbury even attempts to get rid of Heath by ordering a soldier to let go of a tow rope when Heath is knocked off their river boat. Unfortunately for both of them, the army has decided that they have to work together.
• Bait 3D opens with Doyle attempting to rob a supermarket before the city is struck by a tsunami that leaves the centre flooded and a shark swimming around between the aisles. Despite Doyle's initial actions, the rest of the survivors grudgingly accept his assistance in their efforts to survive and kill the shark so they can leave.
• Big Game has a villainous example: while Morris and Hazar are Big Bad Duumvirate, they have very different motives and are often at each other's throats.
• In City Heat, Private Investigator Mike Murphy's partner is brutally murdered when he tries to blackmail a mobster with his secret accounting records. When a rival gang boss goes after the missing records, ex-policeman Murphy is forced to team up again with his ex-partner Lieutenant Speer, even though they can't stand each other, to fight both gangs before Kansas City erupts in a mob war.
• In The Con is On, Peter hates Sidney with a passion (with good reason, as Sidney was responsible for Peter spending three months in a Turkish jail), but has to go to him for help as he is the only contact he and Harry have in Los Angeles.
• Cowboys & Aliens throws together several groups who don't much like each other.
• In Day of the Evil Gun, the protagonists Warfield and Forbes can barely tolerate each other, but have to work together in order to rescue Angie, the woman they both love.
• Defiance: Collaboration between the Bielski Partisans and Soviet Partisans happens to be quite problematic, thanks to rampant antisemitism from the Russian population.
• Godzilla:
  • Often the case when Mothra allies with Godzilla, as her relationship with Godzilla isn't as smooth as Angurius and Rodan's. Averted in Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack! where the guardian monsters become True Companions. Her teamups with Battra tend to go like this as well.
  • Space Amoeba: The rest of the group with Obata, after the reveal that he is an industrial spy. No one trusts him, but they have to work with him given the giant monsters and distrustful natives.
  • See below for MonsterVerse examples.
• In Hellboy (2019), while Hellboy and Alice hit it off like a house on fire, Big Red and Daimio really can't stand each other when they meet, with Daimio even going so far as to commission a holy weapon specifically to kill Hellboy. Naturally, they develop into Fire-Forged Friends over the course of the movie. At the end of it, there's still traces of rivalry, but it's more friendly. Although in the six-months later scene, trying to trigger Daimio's were-jaguar side ends in the Right Hand of Doom meeting his face and throwing him against the wall.
• In the Heat of the Night: Gillespie isn't too thrilled to have Tibbs second-guessing him during the early part of the investigation. But when Tibbs keeps getting proved correct, Gillespie lets up on the animosity. For his part, Tibbs doesn't help ease tensions as he withholds key observations at times and keeps trying to lead the investigation his way.
• The second of the Joshuu Sasori series, Jailhouse 41, finds the heroine obliged to work together with six other prisoners. Many of them hate her, but are also scared enough of her not to attack her, and recognise her toughness and experience will be a bonus.
• This trope is a recurring source of conflict in The MCU's big crossover films.
  • It's established in the first film that The Avengers can't stand each other at all, especially Iron Man and Captain America. However, when it comes time to fight Loki's forces, they'll be more than happy to drop their personal issues to stop the threat however they can. By the end of the movie, they are Fire-Forged Friends.
    Thor: You speak of control, yet you court chaos.
    Bruce Banner: It's his M.O., isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no. We're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're... we're a time-bomb.
    Nick Fury: You need to step away.
    Tony Stark: Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?
    Steve Rogers: You know damn well why! Back off!
    Tony Stark: Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me.
  • Captain America: Civil War:
    • Despite being on Cap's side when it comes to the Accords, Sam Wilson makes no bones about his dislike/distrust of Bucky, which worsens when they have to start working with each other. They can't even sit quietly in the same car without antagonizing each other.
      Bucky: [dangerously] Can you move your seat up?
      Sam: [also dangerously] No.
      [Bucky scoots over in the back seat, glaring at Sam the whole time]
    • Likewise, Black Widow does not like the fact that she's on the same side as Tony as she's a closer friend of Steve's, while T'Challa is mostly on the team because he wants to kill Winter Soldier.
    • Civil War also deconstructs the group's initial Teeth Clenched Teamwork. As the Avengers never fully trusted each other or worked out their initial grievances, it makes it much easier for politics and Zemo to drive a wedge in and break them apart. By the time they do reconcile with each other for good and bury the hatchet once and for all, Thanos has wiped out half of all life in the universe and years have passed before they get the chance to reverse this.
  • In Avengers: Infinity War, despite once being put on opposing sides in Captain America: Civil War, T'Challa averts this by making Steve feel right at home during his visit to Wakanda after Steve shows his appreciation for allowing T'Challa to reform Bucky. Tony on the other hand doesn't get along at first with Star-Lord when an explosive bomb is tossed into the remains of the crashed Q-Ship by Star-Lord.
• MonsterVerse:
  • In Godzilla (2014), Vivienne Graham in particular seems to feel this way about her and Serizawa being forced to cooperate with the military when the military officers settle on the genius plan to try nuking both Godzilla and the MUTOs — later, she seems visibly unimpressed but unsurprised when the Nuke 'em plan has gone horribly awry.
  • The Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) novelization confirms that among the eco-terrorists, Emma Russell feels this way about working with Alan Jonah, regarding the latter as a fanatic and being disgusted by his Lack of Empathy and willingness to use any means to accomplish his goals. The tie-in prequel graphic novel Godzilla Aftershock reveals that she had similar problems when working with Atherton and Tarkan on the MUTO Prime crisis because she simply wasn't the easiest person to work alongside.
  • The Godzilla vs. Kong novelization portrays Apex Cybernetics chief technology officer Ren Serizawa feeling this way about working with Walter Simmons, holding internalized hidden disdain for the egotistical Corrupt Corporate Executive and using his as an Unwitting Pawn for his own agenda. It's also worth noting, Simmons himself quickly snaps at Ren in both the film and novel when the latter protests to Simmons pulling an Unfinished, Untested, Used Anyway.
  • Godzilla and Kong themselves in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, with Godzilla attacking Kong on sight in Egypt, thinking he's broken the truce of Kong staying in the Hollow Earth. As Trapper notes, however, there is a greater threat both of them fear, and "they don't have to like each other, they just have to work together."
• A Perfect World: Red Garnett, a Texas Ranger, is an old-fashioned sort who has his own ways of doing things. Sally Gerber, a criminologist who's along with him because they're both trying to catch escaped convict Butch Haynes, wants to utilize Butch's psychological background to try and catch him, and feels Garnett is a male chauvinist. Eventually, however, they learn to work together, as she sees he's more of a Reasonable Authority Figure than she originally figured him for, while he realizes her insights are useful.
• In Pushing Tin, an air traffic control center is evacuated due to a bomb threat, and feuding controllers Nick and Russell are the only ones who stay inside to make sure all the planes in their airspace are either landed or sent to a different airport before the bomb goes off.
  Nick: I am personally gonna see to it that you go down in flames! Negative, United! That was not to you!
• The Rise of Skywalker: This is the first time we get a chance to see Rey and Poe interacting with each other, which mainly consists of them arguing a lot.
• Saw II and Saw V did something like this to the extreme, as they had enemies put into a house and if they didn't cooperate, they'd die.
• In Shotgun (1955), Clay and Reb claim to be old friends, but acquaintances would seem a more accurate description. Reb's mercenary attitude and willingness to fight dirty grates hard on the far more honourable Clay.
• In Sorority Row, Jessica and Cassie really can't stand each other. However, they are forced to work together if they are to stand any chance of getting out of the sorority house alive.
• X-Men Film Series
  • In X2: X-Men United, the X-Men have to team up with Magneto and Mystique in order to prevent William Stryker from wiping out mutantkind in its entirety. Magneto and Mystique betray them once the threat has passed, and take Pyro with them after his Face–Heel Turn.
  • Harada and Viper in The Wolverine. While the two supply a healthy dose of Intel to each other during the film, they cannot hate each other more. A scene shows them having an argument of ethics and honor, with Viper spraying minor poison on Ken's face and slamming him into the ground as a retort.

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