The body count that is given in the trailer and posters are different. In most poster it says "Why is his head worth one million dollars and 25 lives", in other posters it has 21 instead of 25. Sometimes I get confused with the body count myself, (SPOILER) but is it 21 or 25 until the end of the film, if you know what I mean by that.
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Before the shootout in El Jefe's room, it's 16. That shootout kills 5 [making it 21]. Then the final shootout presumably makes it 25, although personally I would've thought that more than 4 people die in that shootout.
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But Oates doesn't get out the car or shoot, so I don't believe it escalates beyong 22 (after he is shot).
Well, you could count Alfredo Garcia himself (though he's taken out by an auto accident, it apparently occurs after the contract is let). That would make 23. You could also count the prostitute in the bar in Warren Oates' opening scene, when Robert Webber knocks her to the ground. She never gets up and its unclear whether she's just knocked out or dead from a broken neck. But if it is the latter, then that gives you 24.
25th? Well, let's see, candidates would include 1) one of the two women in the hotel room when Oates delivers the head; they disappear when the shooting starts because they are unarmed, but perhaps one of them was killed by a stray bullet; 2) the old man left standing in the road after the big shoot out with the hitmen and Garcia's family. Presumably, as the only and oldest surviving member the family, with nothing to live for and no one to take care of him, he died soon afterwards; 3) One of those turkeys Warren Oates was shooting at early in the drive out to the grave site -- I think he did manage to hit one!
Of course, to get to 25 you have to assume that Bennie wasn't counting any of these people/turkeys himself when he confronts El Jefe at the end.
Does Bennie die? I didn't think so, but all of a sudden I'm questioning myself. I haven't seen it in a while.
shareBennie is definitely killed off in the end...in fact, he gets shot up more times than anyone else in the picture. Everyone else is done in with two or three shots. Bennie gets hit at least a half-dozen times.
One further note about the body count (is it 21, 22, 25, etc.)
That is, I watched the film last Saturday night and in the scene in which Bennie delivers the head to the hotel room, there are at least eight people in the room besides Bennie.
There's the head guy, the accountant-type, two women and four bodyguards. However, in the shoot out, there are only four on-screen deaths -- the head guy, the accountant-type and two of the four bodyguards.
What happened to the two women and other two bodyguards? Did they flee? Were they hit by stray bullets?
It's left up to the viewer, which is why a firm body count is impossible to arrive at.