MovieChat Forums > The Highwaymen (2019) Discussion > Title

Title

posted 5 years ago by [deleted]
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Why The Highwaymen? Did that refer to Bonnie and Clyde or Hamer and Gault?

It doesn't seem like an accurate description of either of them.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Found a possible answer to my question... From the IMDB trivia for this movie:

"In the early 1930s, the Barrow Gang-along with the Dillinger Gang, the Barker-Karpis Gang, and others-exploited the lack of centralized interstate law enforcement authority by using newly-introduced high-performance automobiles and recently-constructed highways to quickly flee across state lines before local police could effectively respond to their violence. Soon after Barrow and Parker's deaths, the U.S. Congress federally criminalized bank robbery and other violent crimes, and greatly expanded the powers of the newly-renamed FBI."

[–] 2coolhipdude (101) 5 years ago

Well that didn't answer their question. Lol. It's actually defined within the film. When they hired Hamer and told him what his salary was. Hamer and Gault were the Highwaymen. Which is basically a Highway Patrolman. They were no longer Texas Rangers. They weren't Government Agents. They didn't even get badges. All this information was told in the film.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Did they actually refer to the lawmen as 'highwaymen' in the movie?

Highwaymen was a historical term for robbers who rode on horseback, i.e. riding along the roads and robbing travelers and coaches. Based on the IMDB article about gangs in the 1930s using highways to move between jurisdictions to commit crimes, I assumed the title was actually referring to Bonnie and Clyde.

[–] 2coolhipdude (101) 5 years ago

"Did they actually refer to the lawmen as 'highwaymen' in the movie?". Yes.

[–] ATG6 (3000) 4 years ago

It's a word play on the typical usage of the word highwaymen as robbers. The Governor wanted to keep the investigation quiet, and many Texas Rangers had retired in protest when she was elected. So they brought back two of their best Rangers and attached them to the Texas Highway Patrol. So the lawmen were the Highway Men in this case. Which fit the investigation too -- the pursued B&C across the highways, and ended up ambushing them, like real highwaymen might have done.