History Main / DisguisedHostageGambit

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', [[EvilTwin Nale]] switches outfits and [[BeardOfEvil facial hair]] with a semiconscious Elan and makes it appear that "Nale" was about to sacrifice "Elan" when the cops and the rest of the Order show up. Elan is then jailed, and Nale travels with the Order until they figure it out.

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* One episode of ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02'' had Davis getting split up from his friends, then finds himself at the mercy of the Digimon Emperor because he captured his friends. The captives on display are actually disguised Bakemons, and Davis gets reunited with his friends who were never even captured at all.

* More than once ComicBook/JonahHex has captured an enemy, dressed the bad guy in his trademark jacket and hat, gagged him and bound him to the saddle before sending the horse galloping into the outlaw camp to draw fire.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}} Franchise/{{Batman}}: Knight of Vengeance'', the Joker pulls this on Jim Gordon, causing Jim to shoot one of Harvey Dent's kids.

* A variation occurs in the first issue of ''Ninjak''. The title character tapes a villainess' mouth shut and tapes her hand to a sword. When her mooks arrive, they see a shadowed figure holding a weapon and open fire, killing her and allowing Ninjak to escape.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' foe Ruin once kidnapped Superman's friend Pete Ross (whom he tricked almost everyone into believing ''was'' Ruin) and his family (his wife Lana and their child), then dressed up Pete like Ruin and made it look like Pete was about to shoot his family when a detective whose fellow officers Ruin killed appeared on the scene. Fortunately, the detective was savvy enough to realize she was being set up.

* In Creator/{{Christopher Priest|Comics}}'s ''ComicBook/BlackPanther'' run, T'Challa's ex-girlfriend Monica ends up captured by a Reverend Achebe. The twist is, Achebe tapes Monica's mouth shut and dresses her up in a remote-controlled exoskeleton, making it difficult for T'Challa to stop the plot without hurting or killing her in the process. Effectively, it's this trope crossed with a HumanShield.
* In the ''ComicBook/ScoobyDooTeamUp'' issue "[[Recap/ScoobyDooTeamUpQuestForMystery Quest for Mystery!]]", Dr. Zin dresses up Dr. Quest as one of his genetically engineered monsters, hoping that his team would attack him, which would allow him [Dr. Zin] some satisfaction from their reactions when they found out what they had done. Luckily, Velma recognized that the "monster" wasn't a monster when she saw its shoes, and was just in time to keep Race from shooting Dr. Quest with the sonic blaster.
* Done by Gypsy Moth during ''ComicBook/SpiderIsland''. She uses her silk to web ComicBook/SpiderWoman's mouth shut, and then dresses up the [[BoundAndGagged gagged]] heroine in a copy of her costume. When [[ComicBook/FantasticFour the Thing]] arrives a few minutes later, he thinks Spider-Woman is actually Gypsy Moth and immediately attacks her.
* While imprisoned by the Penguin in ''ComicBook/BatmanEternal'', ComicBook/{{Catwoman}} manages to switch places with Lark, Penguin's {{Bodyguard Babe|s}}, by taping her mouth shut and handcuffing her. When the ruse works, Catwoman feigns offense and says that Lark isn't nearly sexy enough to pass for her.
* The graphic novel ''ComicBook/VForVendetta'' has a slightly different scene than in the movie: Just one guy is dressed up as V, and he is pretty much one of the bad guys (a high-ranking party member with some seriously sleazy KickTheDog moments, though no outright MoralEventHorizon crossings).
* ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'': Frank Castle does this often spray-painting his trademark skull on the chest of the unfortunate mook.
* ComicBook/TheJoker does this during ''ComicBook/BatmanNoMansLand'' to get rid of a rogue group of survivalist ex-cops. Send out prisoners painted to look like him and the admittedly-crazy leader shot them all.
* Des and the militia pull one of these in the closing scenes of ''ComicBook/{{Revival}}''. It's understated in that there's only a couple of fake targets in the field of a real firefight.

* In one of the ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' issues dealing with the aftermath of ''ComicBook/CivilWarII'', ComicBook/{{Gamora}} is captured by ComicBook/AlphaFlight. It's later discovered that the "Gamora" in custody is actually a female Alpha Flight agent that Gamora had gagged, switched clothes with, and painted up to resemble her.
-->'''Gladiator:''' This is not Gamora. Gamora's skin is a completely different hue.
* ''ComicBook/{{Oxymoron}}'': One of Oxymoron's favored tactics is to blackmail people to dress up as him and force them to kill people.
* ''ComicBook/CodeNameGravedigger'': In ''Men of War'' #18, Gravedigger--who has infiltrated a hospital by [[BandagedFace covering his face and hands in bandages]]--creates a diversion by dressing a Nazi nurse in his bandages and civilian coat and trousers, and shoving her out into the corridor. Unable to speak because of the bandages tightly wrapped around her mouth, she cannot speak and is gunned down by her fellow Nazis.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8286141/12/Harry-Potter-Death-s-Ultimatum Harry Potter & Death's Ultimatum]]'' Voldemort has the Imperiused people fighting on his side clad in Death Eater robes and masks. Harry, knowing that only the genuine Death Eaters will have dragonhide armor on underneath, tells the Hogwarts defenders to stun everybody and then use lethal spells on the ones who aren't knocked unconscious.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* ''Series/NCIS'': At the end of "Murder 2.0" the team finds Rose holding Tommy Doyle at gunpoint. Gibbs notices a camera in the room and turns his gun towards Doyle, who reveals he is the real hostage taker who is threatening Rose with explosives.

* An absolutely horrifying example in ''Series/{{Whitechapel}}'', series 4, when an escaped serial killer known for wearing a creepy mask takes a young man who is roughly the same height and weight as him, tortures him, ''sews his mouth shut so he cannot speak'' then tapes the mask to his face. He then attaches a fake but realistic-looking gun to the young man's hands with wire, and sends him out into a police fight. One of the detectives realises something is up as the "killer" is whimpering in pain, but before he can intervene the young man is shot dead by snipers, after the actual killer deliberately spooks them. Only then do the police realize what they've done.
* A similar variation occurs on ''Series/{{Leverage}}''. Nathan is about to con a corrupt judge out of thousands of dollars when the bank is robbed and the robbers take everyone hostage when the police arrive. The robbers turn out to be father and son who are only robbing the place to get money to pay off some thugs holding the father's wife for ransom. The judge figures out that he is being scammed and when he disarms the robbers, he uses the gun to shoot Nathan. When the cops storm the bank in the end, the team has arranged things to look like the judge was the sole robber and hostage taker. All the witnesses back them up since the judge is reviled by everyone and the cops will not investigate further since they hate his guts as well. Planted drugs also didn't help the judge's image.
* In the ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' episode "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Gang Gets Taken Hostage]]", the [=McPoyles=] make the gang put on their signature bathrobes and briefs (in Dee's case it's an oversized Garfield t-shirt) because "it's far too obvious who the hostages are in this situation".

* On ''Series/{{Psych}}'' (episode "Ferry Tale") escaping convicts on a ferry surrounded by the police [[spoiler: take prisoners inside and pretend to shoot them. When the police raid the boat and take two wounded "hostages" to one of their boats they discover too late that two of the criminals are in fact convicts.]]
* On the 1970's anthology show ''Series/PoliceStory1973'' they had an episode which was the pilot for ''Series/SWAT1975''. A killer brings out his hostage [[spoiler:and the commander orders his snipers to shoot the "hostage" because he sees a glint of chrome on the killer that he realizes are handcuffs meaning they have switched roles. Of course if the glint was from a handgun ... but that is never mentioned]]
* Inverted during the hostage crisis in season 5 of ''Series/TwentyFour'' when Jack notices one of the supposed hostages being handed something by one of the terrorists. The otherwise perfectly inconspicuous looking man is wearing a bright yellow tie, a pretty crappy choice when you want to blend in.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "The Witch's Familiar", Missy attempts to trick the Doctor into shooting Clara by placing her in a Dalek casing.
* ''Series/FatherBrown'': In "The Jackdaw's Revenge", the murderer does this in an attempt to trick Father Brown into shooting Bunty. She uses a light to blind Father Brown as he enters, and has Bunty trussed standing behind the light, while she is tied in a chair with a bag over her head.
* ''Series/TheKillPoint'': The bank robbers' final ploy to escape involves dressing up three of the hostages as bank robbers, and disguising themselves as hostages so they can escape from the scene in an ambulance.
* ''Series/{{Gotham}}'': Professor Pyg does this with [[spoiler: Officer Patel. He stuffs her into a pig mask and puts her next to a crash-test dummy as her "victim", tricking Bullock into shooting her. Patel is fine after being given medical attention, but he still triggers a hidden machine gun to fire at them.]]

* PlayedWith in ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'', because said hostages joined the enemy out of free will without expecting that their enemy's promises to spare their lives if they join his army, were just a trick. Yeah, the Southlanders who joined Adar ended up being used as canon fodders dressed as Orcs, and got themselves killed by their own people who were believing they were fighting just Orcs the whole time.

* PlayedWith in ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'', because said hostages joined the enemy out of free will without expecting that their enemy's promises to spare their lives if they join his army, were just a trick. Yeah, the Southlanders who joined Adar ended up being used as canon fodders getting killed by their own people without knowing.

* In ''ComicBook/TheWarlord'' #125, the Scavenger dresses Tara in in his cloak and throws her at Morgan, making it look like she is attacking him and causing Morgan to stab his own wife.

* ''Film/HoldUp'': In order to escape the site of the BankRobbery he's been planning for two years in Montreal, protagonist Grimm (who did the robbery disguised as a clown) puts his clown disguise on the bank's director, takes his clothes, ties him up on an office chair and leaves him in the boiler room. The police momentarily thinks it's Grimm once they enter the bank, while Grimm has actually left the bank a long while ago disguised as an old man with the bank's director's clothes.

* In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', [[spoiler:The Joker does this with his hostages (with their mouths taped shut, masks to hide this, weapons tied to their hands), and guns being given to the fake hostages to prevent them from actually running, forcing Batman to disable the police officers (although they worked it out eventually). At the very least cops ''do'' notice how suspicious it is that the clowns are standing in plain sight of windows with no cover, wondering why they would leave themselves as such easy targets, but Gordon is in such a desperate panic to save Harvey that he orders the attack anyways]].

* A variation occurs in the fist issue of ''Ninjak''. The title character tapes a villainess' mouth shut and tapes her hand to a sword. When her mooks arrive, they see a shadowed figure holding a weapon and open fire, killing her and allowing Ninjak to escape.

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Medium}}'', the bad guy released an hostage through a back door with a balaclava on his head and a gun taped to his hand. The police shot him dead. Fortunately, it was {{all just a dream}}. A prophetic one, but the main character managed to save the victim when it happened for real.
* In ''Series/{{Fargo}}'', Malvo tricks the cops into wasting their time and killing [[spoiler:[[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness Don Chumph]]]] this way: he uses [[DuctTapeForEverything duct tape]] to gag, tie him to an exercise wheel, and stick an unloaded shotgun in his hand which is then pointed at the front door. He draws the cops' attention by firing a rifle at some cars outside, leaves, and then a tripwire makes the rifle fire more once the SWAT team arrives. When the team enters the front door, the light is in their eyes, so all they see is a silhouette of a man holding a shotgun. Since the exercise wheel keeps him propped up even after being shot, the entire unit shoots continuously for several seconds until they can see he's dead.

* An interesting variation is used in ''Series/BurnNotice''. After their attempts to defuse a hostage situation result in them [[NiceJobBreakingItHero accidentally becoming accomplices]] (someone pulled a gun and Mike took it away from him), Mike and Sam need to find a way out of the situation. After discussing trying this based on an urban legend, and the fact the cops haven't seen the hostage-taker, they manage to convince one of the two hostages (who just found out the other one, her boss, is really a sleazy con artist) to name the other as the gunman. Mike then engineers a situation where said sleazeball is able to take his gun back, and when the cops burst in the plan works without a hitch. Though the negotiator is kind of curious why somebody blew open a safe full of ill-gotten money...

* An issue of ''[[Comicbook/TeenTitans Teen Titans Spotlight]]'' has Two-Face kidnapping Comicbook/{{Cyborg}}'s girlfriend Sarah in order to lure him into a trap. He tapes her mouth shut and dresses her up in a convincing Two-Face costume, hoping that Cyborg will accidently kill her in a fit of rage. Fortunately, Cyborg sees through the ruse at the last second.

* Done by Gypsy Moth during ''ComicBook/SpiderIsland''. She uses her silk to web ComicBook/SpiderWoman's mouth shut, and then dresses up the [[BoundAndGagged gagged]] heroine in a copy of her costume. When [[Comicbook/FantasticFour the Thing]] arrives a few minutes later, he thinks Spider-Woman is actually Gypsy Moth and immediately attacks her.
* While imprisoned by the Penguin in ''Comicbook/BatmanEternal'', Comicbook/{{Catwoman}} manages to switch places with Lark, Penguin's {{Bodyguard Babe|s}}, by taping her mouth shut and handcuffing her. When the ruse works, Catwoman feigns offense and says that Lark isn't nearly sexy enough to pass for her.

* In an old ''Comicbook/{{Wolverine}}'' short story by Creator/ChrisClaremont, Logan tries to rescue his girlfriend Mariko after she's kidnapped by a Yakuza boss. The Yakuza boss has a squad of thugs in [[PoweredArmor Mandroid armor]], and traps Mariko inside one of the suits so that she'll be killed by Logan. Luckily, Logan recognizes Mariko by her scent, and is able to avoid harming her.
* In one of the ''Comicbook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' issues dealing with the aftermath of ''Comicbook/CivilWarII'', Comicbook/{{Gamora}} is captured by Comicbook/AlphaFlight. It's later discovered that the "Gamora" in custody is actually a female Alpha Flight agent that Gamora had gagged, switched clothes with, and painted up to resemble her.

* In the intro level of ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAkaneia Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon]]'', the enemies do this to an archer. However, because it's an intro level, it functions more as a demo of how to recruit enemy units than a real challenge. [[WhatTheHellPlayer You can still kill him and the game will indirectly call you out on it]] before unlocking the path anyway, actually skipping the SomeoneHasToDie moment with Gra's troops. Funnily enough, this can actually be beneficial in some cases, like if the player has already lost a unit (as having one more fallen unit than you're mandated to at the prologue's end grants you the archer that some consider superior), and [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential you can force him to be the sacrifice anyway immediately after recruiting him]]. Referring back to poor Gordin's gagged introduction in the prologue is actually a bit of a [[RunningGag Running ]][[AccidentalPun Gag]] throughout [[NeverLiveItDown the rest of the Archanea remakes.]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10 Omniverse}}'': After escaping from Plumbers HQ, Zombozo disguises Jerry from Inhuman Resources as himself and leaves him in his cell tied up. Ben and Max find out about this after Ben as Wildmutt tears off the disguise.

* In ''Film/MissionImpossibleII'', there is a rare example of [[spoiler:the hero pulling this on the villain, with the aid of a couple of LatexPerfection masks]].
* A grim variant occurs in ''Film/MissionImpossibleIII'', where Ethan's girlfriend is apparently executed by the {{big bad}} at the climax. We later learn that the victim was really [[spoiler:the {{big bad}}'s female mook dressed up like the girlfriend, with her mouth taped shut to prevent her from revealing the ruse]].

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'': Sedusa once traded clothes with Miss Bellum and claimed to have captured "Sedusa" to trick the girls, who fortunately didn't believe Ms. Bellum would single-handedly defeat Sedusa. Ironically, the real Ms. Bellum shows that she can still at least take on Sedusa long enough to figure out how to free the girls from her trap.

* On the 1970's anthology show ''Series/PoliceStory'' they had an episode which was the pilot for ''Series/SWAT1975''. A killer brings out his hostage [[spoiler:and the commander orders his snipers to shoot the "hostage" because he sees a glint of chrome on the killer that he realizes are handcuffs meaning they have switched roles. Of course if the glint was from a handgun ... but that is never mentioned]]

* Occurs at the end of an episode of ''Series/{{Millennium}}''. The villain is a serial killer called the Avatar (based on the Zodiac Killer) who wears a burlap sack over his head to mask his face. He kidnaps a woman, and hero Frank chases him to his lair. After being injured by the Avatar, Frank chases him through the house and manages to corner the killer, who's pointing a gun at him. At the last moment, Frank realizes something's wrong, and doesn't pull the trigger. Turns out the "Avatar" ''is'' the hostage, who's been tied up, gagged, and posed with a gun in her hand. The real Avatar uses this opportunity to escape.

** ''Anime/LupinIIIRedJacket'' has a similar scene. After Lupin and Fujiko hijack a train, the cops think they've cornered them. Zenigata then tears off Lupin's "[[LatexPerfection face]]", revealing that he's really one of the train drivers with some tape over his mouth.

* ''Franchise/{{Lupin III}}'':

** ''Anime/{{Lupin III|Red Jacket}}'' has a similar scene. After Lupin and Fujiko hijack a train, the cops think they've cornered them. Zenigata then tears off Lupin's "[[LatexPerfection face]]", revealing that he's really one of the train drivers with some tape over his mouth.
** In [[Manga/{{Lupin III}} the manga]], there's a chapter where Fujiko partners with a college film student named Yumi to make a documentary about a battle between Lupin and Zenigata. Lupin is seemingly trapped inside in inescapable coffin in order to lure in Zenigata, but it's discovered that he had actually switched places with Yumi by [[BoundandGagged taping her mouth shut]] and [[LatexPerfection placing a mask of his face over hers]], which allowed him to slip away [[MuggedForDisguise in her outfit]].

* An ([[AntiHero anti-]])heroic example: in the ''Film/VForVendetta'' film: [[spoiler:The police shoot a hostage because they're all wearing V masks.]]

** In [[Manga/{{Lupin III}} the manga]], there's a chapter where Fujiko partners with a college film student named Mayumi to make a documentary about a battle between Lupin and Zenigata. Lupin is seemingly trapped inside in inescapable coffin in order to lure in Zenigata, but it's discovered that he had actually switched places with Mayumi by [[BoundandGagged taping her mouth shut]] and [[LatexPerfection placing a mask of his face over hers]], which allowed him to slip away [[MuggedForDisguise in her outfit]].

* Fujiko does this to an unlucky cult enforcer in the pilot episode of ''Anime/LupinIIITheWomanCalledFujikoMine''. She dresses the thug in her dress and gags him, leading to the unlucky {{mook|s}} getting beheaded in her place [[MuggedForDisguise while she escapes in his uniform]].
* ''Anime/{{Lupin III|Red Jacket}}'' has a similar scene. After Lupin and Fujiko hijack a train, the cops think they've cornered them. Zenigata then tears off Lupin's "[[LatexPerfection face]]", revealing that he's really one of the train drivers with some tape over his mouth.