A Wild Bunch of bandits.note
We take on Butch and Sundance! Scott fails at carpentry! Andy invests in platinum!
Episode 77-78 of Film Reroll. Based on the 1969 Western.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are members of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, a group of outlaws operating during the tail end of The Wild West. Specializing in train robbery, they carry out a number of successful heists, but the temptation to find more honest work is still present, and the authorities are starting to crack down on their illegal activities.
Very Loosely Based on a True Story.
Starring Andy Hoover as Butch Cassidy, Scott Aiello as The Sundance Kid, and Paulo Quiros as the Dungeon Master.
Followed by Time Bandits (again) and The Princess Bride.
Tropes:
- Assimilation Plot: News seems to believe (and hope) that one is on its way. He thinks that in the future, everything will be made out of platinum, including the houses, the horses, the children (at least the good ones) and even the sun!
- Bittersweet Ending: Butch and News get away and make it big, but the Sundance Kid dies alone on the prairie. Still a happier ending than what happened in Real Life...
- Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Our protagonists' favoured method of dealing with armed enemies, as they don't like killing people unnecessarily.
- Character Death:
- Cody gets shot dead during the assault on the Hole in the Wall Gang's hideout.
- On the other hand, the White Hat Guy is also seemingly killed by Butch during the shootout.
- Sundance also kills the One-Eyed Man, and the Bandoleer Guy after the latter shoots Butch unconscious.
- The Big Guy also seemingly gets offed by Logan offscreen.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check:
- The players call this the "Clooney-Pitt Problem", asking themselves why two handsome and charismatic guys like our protagonists would have to make their living as bandits.
- News even suggests that it could be more profitable to invest the money they already have instead of just continuing to commit robberies.News: We should become stock brokers! That's the way to rob America blind!
- Cutting the Knot: After the group discusses at length
how uncomfortable Sundance and Etta Place's roleplaying scene was, and how the payoff wasn't really worth it due to how long it took to get there, Scott decides to truncate it:Sundance: (after sneaking in) BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!Etta: (shrieks) Aw, God, Jesus...Sundance: Ha ha! Gotcha!Etta: (pissed) You scared the shit outta me!Sundance: I'm super sorry, I'm really horny, would you mind if w- would you consent to having... intimate relations with me, Etta?Etta: Oh my God, I need it so bad. - Defeat Equals Friendship: The albino develops some Villain Respect for Sundance after the two of them try to kill each other. When they meet hours later, they thank each other for a good fight.
- Disguised in Drag: The first episode ends with Sundance suggesting that he and Butch disguise themselves as prostitutes in order to sneak up and carry out a surprise attack on the agents. Ultimately Averted however, as Butch doesn't want to murder anybody.
- Exact Words: Harvey doesn’t accept that Butch won the knife fight at first, as he kicked him in the balls instead of fighting. Sundance then points out that he himself said there were no rules. As such, Harvey folds.
- Groin Attack / In Spite of a Nail: When it comes time for Harvey to try and wrestle control of the gang from Butch during the latter's attempted coup, Andy opts to just reenact the scene straight and "disables his d". But, because Harvey wasn’t caught off-guard this time, he tries to restart the knife fight after he gets kicked. However, as soon as it’s clear that Butch is standing his ground, Harvey stands down.
- Historical Domain Character: Almost the entire Hole in the Wall Gang, including our two protagonists. A rare exception being Jeff.
- Historical Person Punchline: The Rerollers speculate that News (already a historical person) ended up becoming J.P. Morgan. This was — as you may suspect — not actually the case in Real Life.
- Human Shield: Butch and Sundance take the Sheriff hostage to get past the lawmen alive.
- Identical Stranger: Butch and Cassidy have a city contact who at least sounds just like their fellow gang member News. They call him "Fake News."
- Light Is Good: Played With. The Hero Antagonist hunting our protagonists wears a white hat.
- Mad Bomber: Wayne is obsessed with dynamite and constantly wants to use a ridiculous — and dangerous — amount of it, forcing Butch and Cassidy to keep him in check.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Variation: Because Sundance didn’t reveal his identity right away during the poker game, his opponent decides to try and shoot him on suspicion of cheating. He misses, and Sundance manages to shoot the gun out of his hand... and only then does he reveal he’s the Sundance Kid, causing the man to realize how bad he fucked up.
- Non-Indicative Name: Butch wonders why a rail vehicle was given the name "The Union Flyer".
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Butch and Sundance have a conversation about stocks, not realizing that the former is talking about the market while the latter is referring to the punishment. They do agree that people who end up in them tend to be criminals, though.
- Pragmatic Villainy:
- Butch Cassidy, in contrast to the more Hot-Blooded Sundance Kid, tries to always think his plans through, be polite and not cause more trouble than what is neccessary.
- News is this even more so, to the point of suggesting that they might earn more money by going legit.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: In-Universe, Scott is very surprised to hear that the original ending for the film — the duo being gunned down by the Bolivian army — was far crazier than the reroll turned out. It's never acknowledged that Butch and Sundance were actually real people, who probably note did die like that.
- Shout-Out: During their second train robbery, the gang confront a guard named Jim Nenson.
- The Siege: The agents attack the gang's hideout in this manner, which is bad news for them as it is not well fortified.
- Spared by the Adaptation: The film heavily implies that Butch Cassidy is gunned down along with the Sundance Kid, but here he explicably survives and leaves his life of crime behind. Interestingly enough, there are theories about this being the case in Real Life as well, as his body was never properly identified.
- There Was a Door: Sundance takes out the tracker by running through the wall — complete with a Shout-Out to the Kool-Aid Man — and landing on top of him before shooting him twice just to be safe. Justified in that it was a very poorly constructed shack.
- Thirsty Desert: Sundance exploits this by leaving his hostage behind on the prairie to die. This doesn't work out so well for him though, as he and his horse also ends up perishing on their way back. Though this does end up saving Butch's life, so perhaps it could be considered a bit of an unintentional Heroic Sacrifice.
- Train Job: Our protagonists try robbing the same train twice, with mixed results. The first attempt goes off without a hitch, and while the second is still successful, they're now pursued by riflemen on horseback.
- Uncanny Valley: As Butch and News discuss the future of platinum during Part 1, Scott and Paulo wind up tag-teaming News, prompting Andy to voice his unease over how easily they were doing it during a prolonged bit of dialogue.Paulo!News: (upon Butch, now afraid of the future, not wanting to invest as much in platinum as he planned) Your loss!Scott!News: (without missing a beat) There is no reward without risk-!Andy: (cutting them off) I don't like how you can talk to two voices like that.
- Unfortunate Names: Anthony Woodcock. The bandits don't even think he's being serious at first. They end up mostly calling him "Tony".
- The Unintelligible: Teeth, who doesn't have a single tooth left in his mouth.
- Values Dissonance: In-Universe, the Rerollers feel this way about Sundance's "rape roleplay scene," especially since the reveal that it is just roleplay comes only partway through. They say that, at the very least, the scene goes on for such a disturbingly long time that the comforting reveal doesn't feel worth it.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Downplayed: Paulo openly admits at the outset that this campaign was a last-minute decision; Joz was originally supposed to do a campaign that day of recording, but she got ill, so Paulo decided to quickly draft up a campaign with this movie, as he had already seen it enough times that he didn’t have to waste time rewatching it.
