Line #64 Film/TheHighwaymen


1	[[quoteright:325:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1920poster_noscale.png]]
2
3	''The Highwaymen'' is a 2019 crime film directed by John Lee Hancock and released by Creator/{{Netflix}}.
4
5	In the early 1930s during TheGreatDepression, notorious outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are carving a bloody path through the Midwest, and retired Texas Rangers Frank Hamer (Creator/KevinCostner) and Maney Gault (Creator/WoodyHarrelson) are tasked with tracking the pair down.
6
7	No relation to ''Film/{{Highwaymen}}''.
8
9	----
10	!!Tropes:
11	* ActorAllusion: Early on, mention is made of [[Film/RobinHoodPrinceOfThieves Robin Hood]] and Film/WyattEarp — both of whom have been played by Kevin Costner.
12	* AntagonisticGovernor: Texas Governor "Ma" Ferguson makes clear throughout the film that she has no love for the Texas Rangers and doesn't want Hamer and Gault to succeed because of this.
13	* ArmorPiercingQuestion: At one point, a reporter asks Governor "Ma" Ferguson of Texas about people comparing Bonnie and Clyde to Robin Hood. She gives the reporter a DeathGlare and asks: "Did Robin Hood ever shoot a gas station attendant for four dollars and a tank of gas?"
14	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Most of the movie averts this trope and actually does well in showing off the time period, even having the final shootout ([[CurbStompBattle if you can call it that]]) at the exact spot where it actually happened. However, it does get a few things wrong, for example:
15	** Ma Ferguson and the other government officials claim that the Rangers were disbanded when Ma took office; in reality they were still around, though quite incompetent and filled with Ferguson lackeys. Ma in reality was quite fine with Frank Hamer being chosen to lead the Manhunt as while they were at odds during his time as a ranger, once he retired she showed no ill will towards him.
16	** Simmons is told that Hamer has his own security firm and has been working with oil companies; actually by 1934 Hamer was technically unemployed for two years, technically having an unpaid internship on the Texas State Patrol. The offer of hunting Bonnie and Clyde was actually the first real paying job he had since retirement, the previous two years had been spent lobbying Washington DC to be appointed a US Marshal.
17	** Hamer and Gault received far more support from other law enforcement officers than is portrayed in the film, hell the FBI wasn't really much of a law enforcement branch at the time of the hunt as it was mostly staffed by lawyers and clerks. It wouldn't be until after this hunt that J. Edgar Hoover would overhaul the organization.
18	* AssholeVictim: Bonnie and Clyde of course. After a long and bloody crime spree across the American Midwest, the couple are finally ambushed by the police and are completely massacred with machine gun fire. With all they had done and with all the people they had killed, the pair certainly had it coming.
19	* BangBangBang: Gault is so surprised at the sound of Hamer firing the Colt Monitor machine rifle that he falls over. TruthInTelevision as the recoil compensator creates a concussive blast that can be quite startling.
20	* BribeBackfire: Invoked by Hamer and Gault in order to weed out potentially corrupt cops by having Gault pretend to be acquainted with the Barrow gang and offer a Louisiana Sheriff a bribe. When the Sheriff tells him to get the hell out of his parish for attempting to corrupt an officer of the law, they know they can rely on him.
21	* BondOneLiner: Played with. Gault recounts a time when they were chasing a murderous gang, and every time the lawmen warned the gang to put their hands up ("''manos arribos''"), the gang responded by firing at them. Hamer's answer was to launch an attack in the dead of night, without warning, and kill the entire gang while most of them were asleep. Once the entire gang was dead, Hamer said "manos arribos, ya sons a' bitches". While it's a generally heroic example, Gault's recounting makes clear that he's still haunted by the incident, and a bit creeped out by Hamer's attitude. Maney later repeats the line after Bonnie and Clyde are killed.
22	* BrickJoke: When they first team up, Hamer flat-out refuses to let Gault take his turn driving. Right before the end of the movie, Hamer is shown changing places with Gault for the drive back to Texas.
23	* BrokenPedestal: Early on, Hamer and Gault meet a young cop who was childhood friends with Bonnie and Clyde and provides a little exposition about their start as outlaws and pretty much implies he would not be able to hurt them. The Rangers eventually drive him to one of the gang's crime scenes and an enraged Hamer [[{{Invoked}} tells the kid]] to take a good look at the cop Bonnie head-shot at point-blank range [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown while he was lying on the ground]] and that he shouldn't consider them human anymore. They use that same cop to identify Bonnie and Clyde before they're ambushed, and even though Gault gives him the chance to avoid shooting, he insists on taking part.
24	* BuddyCopShow: The film follows Frank Hamer and Maney Gault, the two Texas Rangers who apprehended and killed Bonnie and Clyde. However, while their partnership forms a large part of the plot, it's more of a quiet western drama and neither man (both of them veteran lawmen who came out of retirement for the job) is in a laughing mood given the murderous crime spree they're charged with stopping.
25	* BullyingADragon: Three hoodlums associated with the Barrow gang attempt to intimidate Gault while he's relieving himself. He shoves the first guy's head in a toilet and pulls a gun on the other two, admonishing their audacity to actually try to rob a man taking a leak, and a Texas Ranger at that.
26	* CassandraTruth: Hamer is convinced that Bonnie & Clyde are coming back to her parents' home on Easter Sunday because of a wiretapped conversation about "red beans and cabbage," which he believes is a code phrase. When Sunday arrives, the FBI people are gently chiding him for thinking the criminals would come back home when suddenly they receive a call about Bonnie & Clyde being involved in a big shootout right outside of town.
27	* ChaseScene: Featuring [[TruthInTelevision Depression-era cars]], no less.
28	* ChildrenAreInnocent: When Hamer and Gault were asking around a Hooverville for information, all the people there refuse to provide information. The only person who tells them where Bonnie and Clyde went was a little girl who Bonnie gave a doll to, and she only informed after Hamer told her that the bandit couple were bad people and were going to keep hurting others.
29	* ComeToGawk: Crowds of gawkers, reporters, souvenir hunters and hysterical fans mob the outlaws bullet-riddled car as it's towed down the street.
30	* ConvenientlyEmptyRoads: While chasing Bonnie and Clyde, Hamer and Gault encounter very little traffic. {{Justified\|Trope}}, since it takes place in the 1930s.
31	* CopKiller: At one point Bonnie murders a peace officer after he was too injured to fight back.
32	* CowboyCop: Hamer uses methods that would be regarded as police brutality by a metropolitan officer, but Texas Rangers in the old days really did have this reputation. In the opening, the then-Governor of Texas, "Ma" Ferguson, even balks at the idea of sending a "cowboy" to hunt down criminals. Gault tells of an incident years earlier when the Rangers were trying to capture five dozen banditos. They would approach and shout "hands up" in Spanish, as per the book, and get shot at, usually losing a man in the process. Hamer arrives and has them attack at night when the banditos were asleep.
33	* DamnedByFaintPraise: Early on, Hamer explains to Gault that he decided against recruiting him to come along after seeing him move like an 85-year-old. Towards the end of the film, he jokingly tells him, "for the record, you only move like you're 75."
34	* DeadFootLeadfoot: [[spoiler:When Bonnie and Clyde are killed, Clyde's foot slips off the clutch, causing their car to creep forward, giving the posse the impression they were still alive and trying to escape and/or run over Hamer.]]
35	* {{Deconstruction}}: Bonnie and Clyde's FolkHero status is given a work-over, mostly by showing that they ''didn't'' deserve it and it blinded people to the fact they were kill-crazy maniacs.
36	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Invoked; Hamer knows that outlaws always return home at some point.
37	* EmpathyDollShot: Played with and having a long set-up time: in one of the early scenes of the film, an old man with a nice car is stopped by the Barrow gang and as he notices who is blocking his path [[OhCrap he says "God, have mercy"]] and the camera focuses on a tiny doll dangling from his rearview mirror as the scene cuts. When Hamer and Gault arrive to a shanty town to ask around, the only person willing to tell the Rangers anything about the Barrow gang is a little girl, and she walks away for a few seconds before coming back to where the Rangers are and showing them that same doll, saying "the woman (Bonnie) gave me this". This cements once and for all what the previous scene implied, which is that the Barrow gang [[EvilIsPetty took the old man's car and probably killed him too]].
38	* EvilIsPetty: The first crime we hear about the Barrow gang, besides the jail break of the prologue, is "Ma" Ferguson mentioning to a reporter that the Barrow gang killed a gas station attendant to steal four dollars and not pay him for some gasoline.
39	* TheFaceless: Bonnie and Clyde are rarely shown up-close until their death scene, adding to their mystique. Bonnie is given a close up when pointing a gun at a downed policeman and saying "Hi, sweetie" before the scene cuts, while Clyde isn't shown in a close up until the end. When Hamer finally has them dead to rights after luring the pair into a trap, the two spree killers look surprisingly young (they were in their mid-twenties when they committed their crimes).
40	* FakingEngineTrouble: The plan to finally stop Bonnie and Clyde requires enlisting the help of the father of one of their associates to park his truck on the only route to his house where they're staying, and fake a flat tire so that the pair will stop to help, providing the perfect opportunity for Hamer and his men to apprehend them. They do fall for the trap, but [[MultipleGunshotDeath they're not willing to go quietly]].
41	* FameThroughInfamy: The film explores how Bonnie and Clyde's fame as outlaws is just plain wrong. Most of the main cast, as people of law, don't hide their disgust at this fact.
42	-->'''Gault''' (''reading [[PurpleProse one of Bonnie's crappy poems]], which was published by a newspaper''): Used to be that you had to be a ''good'' writer to get your stuff published. Now all you have to do is [[SpreeKiller kill people]].
43	* ForTheEvulz: How Hamer sees Bonnie and Clyde rampage throughout the nation. [[BerserkButton It pisses him off every time]] when people consider them anything else than deranged killers.
44	* ForegoneConclusion: Bonnie and Clyde are eventually killed in a MultipleGunshotDeath by law enforcement when Hamer and Gault track them down.
45	* GodzillaThreshold: Texas Department of Corrections Chief Lee Simmons convinces Governor "Ma" Ferguson that she should hire Hamer to hunt Bonnie and Clyde, even if she hates getting any Texas Rangers in the case (and she still tries to undermine their efforts throughout the film) because, as he makes clear, Bonnie and Clyde have been on an uninterrupted six-month rampage, the regular folk now think of them as heroes, all investigations so far have done nothing to get them and cops have been slaughtered left and right. She already is knee-deep in embarrassment and she needs them dead ''now''.
46	* GreatEscape: Bonnie and Clyde breaking several prisoners out of Eastham Prison Farm is what instigates the film's plot. TruthInTelevision, and historians believe this was Clyde's ultimate goal of the crime spree - to get revenge against the prison due to abuses he suffered during a two-year stay within its walls.
47	* GunPorn: The scene where Hamer buys all his guns at once from a single gunstore is pure RuleOfDrama.
48	* HistoricalHeroUpgrade:
49	** Bonnie and Clyde are portrayed in-story as the recipients of this, with people crying at the news of their death and thousands attending their funerals. The movie itself averts this, making it clear that they were bloodthirsty murderers.
50	** The film's portrayal of Frank Hamer leans into this trope. Hamer is shown to be fairly mild-mannered by the film, and hesitates on accepting the offer to hunt Bonnie and Clyde due to his family. In reality, he retired because he refused to [[StayInTheKitchen serve under a female governor]][[note]] Hamer often told people this, but Ma Ferguson had originally replaced her husband, the notoriously corrupt James "Pa" Ferguson as governor, and her first term had shown her to be just as dirty. She had repeatedly tried to use Hamer and other Rangers as personal muscle against her own enemies, and Hamer and other Rangers had refused to enforce her personal vendettas[[/note]]. He balked as the initial offer Chief Simmons made for the hunt, as it was half of what he was earning as a strikebreaker for oil companies, and had a long history of CowboyCop antics both good[[note]]Such as exposing a murder-for-hire ring ran by the Texas Bankers' Association, who were offering $5000 rewards for explicitly dead criminals. When fellow law officers refused to assist him in shutting the ring down as they were profiting from it, Hamer took his detailed exposé to the State Capitol, blowing the ring open[[/note]] and bad[[note]]Such as him threatening a Texas State Representative, José Tomás Canales, who was investigating the Texas Rangers for allegations of abuse. Hamer's reputation, and threats, were considered serious enough that fellow Representatives escorted Canales to the hearings for protection[[/note]].
51	** During the climax; Hamer attempts to get Bonnie and Clyde to surrender and the group does not open fire until they see them attempt to pull out their weapons. The accounts of the real ambush vary, but most agree that the posse didn't give an order to halt before opening fire, and other accounts claim that Deputy Oakley jumped out and opened fire too early, leading the rest to follow along.
52	** The ending of the film strongly implies that Hamer's reputation is hit from being the face of the group that killed Bonnie and Clyde, but the truth is more complicated. Public opinions on the pair had already turned against them by the time of the ambush but the circumstances of the ambush, chiefly the supposed lack of a halt order and the overwhelming firepower unloaded into the two, is what caused public sympathy to swing back toward the outlaws.
53	* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: In the inverse of the usual portrayal they receive, Bonnie and Clyde are even more ruthless and bloodthirsty than they were in reality. This includes shooting a gas station attendant dead over four dollars[[note]]While the gang was known for taking gas attendants as hostages, there's no evidence that they outright killed one simply to get out of paying. It's possible that this event could have been based on an actual murder where Clyde attacked and executed a butcher in a sixty dollar robbery, though this happened early in the crime spree[[/note]], pinning the murder of Wade [=McNabb=] on Clyde[[note]]There's little to suggest that Clyde was the one who killed [=McNabb=], and it's more likely that one of the prisoners he broke out of Eastham was responsible. The real [=McNabb=] was found dead in the woods after police received a note directing them to his body, whereas the film shows Hamer and Gault finding [=McNabb=] dead in his home[[/note]], and Bonnie executing a wounded officer during the Grapevine shooting[[note]]Which is based on a false testimony where a witness claimed that Bonnie had executed one of the officers. While the witness later admitted to making this up, the media ran with the story and it was a major factor in turning the public against the couple. The actual shooters were Clyde and Henry Methvin, with Bonnie remaining in their car during the shooting[[/note]].
54	* HousepetPig: Texas Ranger [[CowboyCop Frank Hamer]] keeps a [[FullBoarAction boar]] called [[APigNamedPorkchop Porky]] in his house, much to his wife's displeasure. Porky basically behaves like an AngryGuardDog for his master, though he respects him enough not to attack anyone Hamer tells him not to.
55	* JurisdictionFriction: Hamer and Gault are technically only allowed to investigate crimes within the State of Texas and run into a smarmy FBI agent several times. At one point, when they're told to turn back by a road block for crossing state lines, Hamer decides to ignore it.
56	* JustLikeRobinHood: Defied. The two times in the film that someone tries to defend the OutlawCouple by saying that they think they are like this, the heroes point out that this pair of sociopaths kill people indiscriminately, including [[EvilIsPetty a poor gas station attendant that they didn't want to pay]] and [[CopKiller any cop that has the bad luck of getting in their way]], and do ''not'' deserve this label.
57	-->'''Governor "Ma" Ferguson:''' Did Robin Hood ever shoot a gas station attendant for four dollars and a tank of gas?
58	* KickThemWhileTheyAreDown: One of the cops killed by Bonnie was fatally wounded but not instantly killed... so she kicked him around while he was lying on the ground [[ForcedToWatch so he would look up to her and see]] the CoupDeGrace coming.
59	* LastStand: Defied. The whole point of the ambush plan was to prevent Bonnie and Clyde from trying this because they are TheDreaded and the moment Bonnie still tries to go for her gun the whole bunch of lawmen open fire.
60	* MadeOfIron: TruthInTelevision. While [[spoiler: not getting any serious injuries onscreen]], it's mentioned that Hamer was shot seventeen times. And still carrying some of those bullets in his body.
61	* MathematiciansAnswer: After Hamer buys more than a dozen guns and ammunition to spare, the gunstore owner asks him what he needs all the firepower he just purchased for, if he "don't mind him asking". Hamer just retorts "No, I don't mind you ''asking'' at all" without elaborating further.
62	* MiddleNameBasis: Benjamin Maney Gault goes by Maney.
63	* MisplacedNamesPoster: As shown above, Costner is billed over Harrelson, but their characters are shown in reverse order.
64	* MoreDakka: Both sides live by having guns and riddling their targets with ''multiple'' rounds. For instance, Hamer, Gault and their assisting lawmen fire everything on Bonnie and Clyde with no hesitation during the ambush.
65	* MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: When Hamer and Gault first begin the mission, they are at first hesitant at the prospect of killing Bonnie because she is a woman. Yet the film portrays her as being more violent and unstable than Clyde, and in the last standoff she's the one who reaches for her gun.
66	* MultipleGunshotDeath:
67	** The film culminates with the multiple-gun death of Bonnie and Clyde from the perspective of the policemen who put the ambush together.
68	** This is the usual fate of police officers faced by the couple, as they use [[{{BFG}} Browning Automatic Rifles]] and submachine guns as their weapons of choice.
69	* OhCrap: Bonnie and Clyde get a really nice "deer in the headlights" look on their faces when they notice that they are surrounded by a dozen lawmen packing automatic weapons and no desire to take them in alive.
70	* OlderHeroVsYoungerVillain: Hamer and Gault are two aging Texas Rangers who came out of retirement to hunt down Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, a young OutlawCouple. For [[RightHandVersusLeftHand a given value of "villain"]], all of the members of the newly-formed FBI that appear are also young [[SmugSnake and incredibly smug]] and try to undermine the Rangers' work at every turn.
71	* PantsPositiveSafety: Hamer and Gault carry their pistols this way, and the former is shown practising his QuickDraw starting each time with his gun tucked into his belt.
72	* PerspectiveFlip: We follow the men that hunted Bonnie and Clyde while their historical rampage is happening elsewhere, with their only true face-to-face meeting being the moment in which the cops slaughter the couple.
73	* {{Reconstruction}}: Of Frank Hamer's reputation after the infamous hatchet job done on him in ''Film/BonnieAndClyde''. Far from a buffoon, he was a dedicated police officer doing his job and not motivated by revenge as the older film implies. There is also TruthInTelevision to this trope; Hamer served with distinction as a Texas Ranger for twenty seven years and was well known as a [[GreatDetective top notch investigator]] and a crack shot who succeeded more often than he failed.
74	* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Discussed. When Gault is telling the story about how he and Hamer killed off a bandito gang well before the events of the film, he makes a point of mentioning that the banditos not only murdered a dozen people but raped just as many women.
75	* RetiredBadass: Gault is living off the charity of his daughter, while Hamer is comfortably employed by the oil companies.
76	* RevolversAreJustBetter: Zigzagged; while Gault and Hamer do favour Colt Single Action revolvers, Hamer makes sure to buy some automatic weapons for MoreDakka (and because he's not as accurate as he used to be), though he also includes a lever action rifle so he'll have one weapon that he can be sure won't jam.
77	* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: Inverted. Hamer and Gault convince one of the prisoners that Bonnie and Clyde tried to break out, a kid named Wade [=McNabb=], to attract them into a trap in exchange for early parole, and even get him out of prison so he can hold his part of the deal. [=McNabb=] remains loyal to Bonnie and Clyde and tells them about the trap. When Hamer and Gault arrive to [=McNabb=]'s home to arrest him for breaking the deal, they discover that Bonnie and Clyde [[BatterUp beat him to death with a baseball bat]] [[UngratefulBastard as "thanks"]].
78	* RunningGag:
79	** A lot of jokes are made about Gault's age and his constant need to go to the toilet. [[spoiler: He eventually ends up confronted by three hoodlums inside one and beats them into submission while taking a literal piss at them]].
80	** Early in the film, Hamer has to explain to Gault what a wiretap is. Gault then tries to show off in two later scenes by talking about wiretaps.
81	* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: At the end, after killing Bonnie and Clyde, a New York reporter from the Associated Press offers Hamer a thousand dollars for an interview. He just walks off in disgust while Gault mutters "shame on you".
82	* SecretTestOfCharacter: The two Texas Rangers pursuing Bonnie and Clyde track them down to Bienville Parish, Louisiana. Since they're out of their jurisdiction, they have to rely on local law enforcement to apprehend the pair, but the state's Sheriffs are notoriously corrupt. So in order to ensure they're not dealing with a DirtyCop, one of them pretends to be an acquaintance of Clyde Barrow and slips the Sheriff a wad of bills. When [[BribeBackfire he angrily refuses the bribe]], they know they're dealing with an honest lawman.
83	* ScaryImpracticalArmor: The locals have a good snigger at a Thompson-armed police officer clanking around outside the Barrow residence in what looks like a 1930's mecha-suit.
84	* ShellShockedVeteran: It's made pretty clear that Gault's time as a Texas Ranger and the bloodshed he did during it (including [[DeathOfaChild accidentally shooting a child]]) has taken its toll on him.
85	-->'''Gault''': I don't sleep much anymore. When I close my eyes, all I see is dead Mexicans.
86	* SmugSnake: The amount of law enforcement and government people who aren't these can be literally counted with one hand.
87	* SpiritualAntithesis: To ''Film/BonnieAndClyde'' and other films that [[DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster glamorized]] the OutlawCouple pair by depicting them as free-spirited {{Lovable Rogue}}s (a glamour that is mostly still lasting today). Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker are never shown up close until their death scene, only seen from afar as they're robbing civilians and graphically murdering police officers, as if all we're seeing is eyewitness testimonies of their worst crimes. Additionally, the actual main characters, Frank Hamer and Maney Gault, two seasoned Texas Rangers, are depicted as [[PragmaticHero quite methodical and ruthless]] in their quest to hunt down the two without any attempt to whitewash their actions, and are even depicted as pretty boring everyday people. For them, it's just a job like any other and unlike Bonnie and Clyde, they're not in it for the glory.
88	* StopOrIWillShoot: Hamer believes that if you're facing banditos or an OutlawCouple who respond to demands to surrender with lethal force, there's no point in giving them fair warning.
89	* SuddenHumility: A gas station attendant at first arrogantly tells Hamer and Gault that he admires Bonnie & Clyde and won't help them. Hamer beats the man, which does nothing, but then tells him in graphic detail about the innocent police officer the two outlaws just killed [[ForTheEvulz for no real reason]], and about that officer's now-destitute family, [[BrokenPedestal smashing the pedestal]] from under the "folk heroes". The attendant gets somber and provides the Rangers with all the information he knows.
90	* SuitWithVestedInterests: "Ma" Ferguson hired Hamer and Gault because she wanted to show she was doing every effort to get Bonnie and Clyde, but she has absolutely no love for the Texas Rangers (which had actually been disbanded by her some years prior and remained disbanded until she retired from her charge) and wants any other cop (hopefully that newfangled FBI) to get the outlaws first. [[GladIThoughtOfIt Of course, when the outlaws end up being killed thanks to the efforts of the former Rangers, she is quick to say that she knew it was a good idea to hire them]].
91	* TechnologyMarchesOn: In-universe, Gault is astonished by the concept of government agents wiretapping the phone lines and car-mounted radios (two-way and regular). He doesn't have nice things to say about cars, though.
92	-->'''Gault (while riding shotgun in a scene)''': I don't think a saddle ever screwed up my butt as much as this seat!!
93	* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill:
94	** The first thing Hamer does after being commissioned to track down Bonnie and Clyde is to visit the gun shop in his old partner's town and stock up an arsenal of various handguns and high-caliber rifles.
95	** During the final shootout, the lawmen make ''damn sure'' Bonnie and Clyde will ''not'' survive, primarily by hosing the two and their car with enough bullets to destroy a small village. When they run out of ammo for their machine guns, they instantly switch to handguns and put another barrage into the car just to be sure.
96	* TooDumbToLive:
97	** Bonnie and Clyde are caught by surprise by Hamer, but still reach for their weapons. Of course they had nothing to gain by surrendering as they were facing the death penalty anyway.
98	** Discussed when Hamer talks of how as a teenager his boss offered him money to kill a business rival, only for Hamer to threaten to warn his intended victim. [[YouKnowTooMuch Sure enough]] Hamer ends up getting shotgunned InTheBack instead. Fortunately his would-be murderer failed to finish him off, so when Hamer recovered he went to the man's house and shot him dead.
99	* TruerToTheText: This film is more historically accurate than ''Film/BonnieAndClyde''. That said, it still takes few liberties with portraying the events and characters.
100	* TruthInTelevision:
101	** The ending shootout (featuring Hamer, Gault and other law officers saturating Bonnie & Clyde's car with bullets) seems gratuituous...until the closing credits show actual photos of the scene. If anything, the film ''underplays'' what happened.
102	** The same can be said of the later scene where a crowd swarms the cars carrying Bonnie and Clyde's bodies. In real life, one woman cut off bloody locks of Bonnie's hair and pieces from her dress. Also, while many did take shell casings and shards of glass as souvenirs, people attempting to cut off Clyde's ears and fingers were stopped before the gruesome souvenirs could be collected.
103	* TwilightOfTheOldWest: Just barely - the Wild West is long dead, but Hamer and Gault are old enough to remember its last gasp as their GloryDays.
104	* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Clyde's father claims that Clyde's StartOfDarkness was stealing a chicken out of hunger and being monitored by the police long afterwards. Hamer relates that his entry into law enforcement began when he killed his boss in revenge for shooting him, and that the only reason he wasn't charged with murder was because the man he killed was already a wanted criminal. When Hamer talks to Clyde's father, they both argue that this often turns people into who they are.
105	* UrineTrouble: There's a RunningGag of Gault having to stop and urinate during the long manhunt for Bonnie and Clyde. However he ends up weaponizing this trope when some hoodlum friends of the Barrow gang try [[CampingACrapper ambushing him in a public toilet]]. As their leader brandishes a SinisterSwitchblade, Gault turns to face him while still urinating--startled, the hoodlum looks down [[WeNeedADistraction enabling Gault to clobber him]] and shove his head in the toilet, while drawing his pistol on the other two.
106	* UsedToBeASweetKid: After tracking the pair for months with no success, Hamer and Gault circle back to Bonnie and Clyde's hometown, where Hamer confronts Clyde's father Henry. The man explains that Clyde wasn't born evil, but he knows that the nature of his son's crimes means he's marked for death. He just begs Hamer to end it already to spare the rest of the Barrow family any more suffering.
107	* WouldNotHitAGirl: Hamer notices, after talking to one of Bonnie and Clyde's old friends (who is now a policeman and probably hesitated to shoot them in prior confrontations) that other cops are hesitant to shoot for fear of hitting Bonnie, which is a hesitation that the OutlawCouple has no problem [[FlawExploitation exploiting]] to blow them all away.

Context Film / TheHighwaymen