Best crime movie mistakes of all time

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Saw V picture

Continuity mistake: When Seth has been sliced by the blade, he spits blood that goes all over his face. It then cuts to Hoffman looking at him, then back to Seth, and now the blood on his face has gone. This happens three or four times. (00:05:10)

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Kiss the Girls picture

Plot hole: In the scene where Ashley Judd runs away from her attacker and falls into her aquarium he has moved to the bottom of the stairs - there is no way he would have been able to move that full fish tank. It looked to be about a 30 gallon tank - it would weigh about 400 pounds with the stand and even if he slid it with some superhuman strength, glass tanks are notorious for shattering when you move them full. Plus it would've made enough noise to wake the dead - no way she wouldn't have heard it.

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The Green Mile picture

Factual error: This movie is set in 1935. Back then, executions were done by hanging. The Louisiana Legislature changed the method from hanging to electrocution in 1940.

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Taxi 2 picture Taxi 2 mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Daniel is being chased by the Yakuzi in their black Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6s, one of their Lancers crashes into the tanks. The car used for that crash is however a Lancer Evo 4, which is older than the Evo 6, and has a different front bumper, bonnet and rear spoiler. (01:17:25)

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Batman picture Batman mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the Joker's henchmen are trashing the museum, one guy puts red handprints all over a portrait, later the Joker walks by the same portrait and the handprints are gone. (00:59:55)

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Knives Out picture

Plot hole: The killer shows up at the scheduled appointment at 8 AM. They kill the idiot blackmailer with an overdose of morphine. Remember, that morphine that supposedly killed Thrombey in 10 minutes. Marta finds the blackmailer at 10 AM...alive, and does CPR on them, keeping them alive long enough for the ambulance to come and bring them to the hospital, even if in critical condition. So we went from "kills in 10 minutes, you can't even try to save him" to "after 2 hours, you are still hanging on"? (01:56:10)

Sammo

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: Marta injected an absurdly large dose. A smaller overdose would not kill in 10 minutes.

I read that objection before. From 10 minutes to 2 hours there's quite a leap that the movie does not explain or address at all, if it were part of the plot they should have said why this difference, on something so time sensitive (of which they got the factual details wrong anyway). Even visually when you look at the dose injected to Harlan and the dose in the syringe for the murder, they do not look different. He even stabs her with the syringe. Which makes sense since he has no reason to leave her there with a small. Controlled overdose in her veins risking that she would be saved as it -almost - happens - it's amazing he got away with it to begin with because she is so dumb to show up for no reason in a derelict place without talking to her accomplice that passed her the toxi report, or anyone.Without a throwaway line from an investigator or anything of the sort ("but you injected her the wrong way, so she was still alive two hours after"), we are just left with an inconsistency.

Sammo

Suggested correction: You've assumed a hell of a lot! Marta said Thrombey was given a dose of 100 mg (instead 3) of Morphine and would die in 10 minutes unless given the antidote. You just asserted that "Thrombey would die in 10 minutes" as if it was fait accompli, while Thrombey didn't die of morphine overdoes at all! (He cut his own throat.) For all we know, Marta's 10-minute assessment was a worst-case-scenario assessment. Fran's age and physique, as well as Marta's CPR, helped negate the effect until the ambulance arrives. If the medics administered the antidote, it could have prolonged Fran's life. Finally, 2 hours is the time after which the viewer is informed of Fran's death, not her actual death time. Most importantly, this happens in the medical world all the time: A person who is supposed to die after 3 days lives for 16 years. There are case-by-case explanations for each one, but they baffle the medical examiners at first.

FleetCommand

Two hours is not my assumption or when the viewer is informed of her death; the killer gives the appointment to the victim at 8 AM and to Marta at 10 AM, so as I said, after 2 hours with 0 medical care on her she is still hanging on and with barely a little tap she is ready to dispense important clues. I go by what the movie says also about the 10 minutes overdose time. Of course if you tell me that baffling freak occurrences can happen all the time in medicine and that very precise statements from the movie don't matter because the character can just have gotten it wrong by over 10x and the movie does not acknowledge it at all, well, that's a very respectable opinion; mine is that fiction (a whodunnit, not a slasher flick with a killer surviving multiple gunshots and the like) is not reality and it should respond to higher standards than "I guess she was still alive somehow."

Sammo

I re-watched the movie to verify that Fran was given an appointment at 8 AM. I discovered something new: The bottle that was injected to Fran contained only 5 mg of Morphine. That's 1/20th of what was "supposedly" given to Thrombey Sr. So, yeah, 10x is OK. In fact, 20x is OK.

FleetCommand

No, no; it contains 5 mg of morphine PER ml, it's the concentration, not the total. Go back to the scene when Marta "messes up", the vials are the exact same as the one that Ransom injects (obviously, since they come from Marta's bag after all). It's new for you but I covered that already in the Factual Error about it. It's something that piles upon a previous mistake. She did not give him 100 mg of morphine because it would have emptied the vial (which is more than half full) and because a full vial of ketorlac would have killed Trombe regardless, at that concentration! The movie gets both the props and the medical facts wrong (100 mg of morphine does not even kill most patients, Harlan would have not died in 10 minutes especially since he takes safely big doses of toradol and morphine), but nothing - in the script - says that Marta or Ransom got basic medical facts wrong.

Sammo

Okay! It seems mistake after mistake is piling up. Now, it appears Fran lived 4 hours, during 2 of which she was unattended. Plus, 100 mg of Morphine from a 5 mg/ml vial amounts to 20 ml of liquid. Well, now, everything you say makes sense... or at least most of the things. On the whole, I think it was a complicated situation.

FleetCommand

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Edward Scissorhands picture

Plot hole: At the end of the film, we see Edward carving ice sculptures in his mansion. How did he get the ice up there? First of all, it takes place in a warm climate and I didn't see a freezer up there in the castle. He couldn't have gotten ice from town because firstly he had scissors for hands and couldn't have gripped the ice. And, even if by some miracle he could, he wouldn't be able to buy any from town because everyone in town but Kim was convinced that Edward was dead, she told everyone that they killed each other. And Kim didn't bring it to him because she told her granddaughter in the end that she never saw him again after that night. So where did he get that ice?

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Beverly Hills Cop picture

Revealing mistake: In the scene where Axel throws the art dealer's henchman onto the buffet table, if you watch carefully (or use slow-mo) you can see the stunt double pulling off that manoeuvre. There is also a stunt double being thrown over the table.

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Bodywork picture

Continuity mistake: Near the end when Tiffany is spitting blood out she gets some smeared all over her face. They then cut to a camera above Virgil's head and the blood smear is gone, but when they cut back to the first camera she has the blood smear again.

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Smokey and the Bandit picture

Continuity mistake: Sheriff Buford T. Justice gets out of his car and leaves the door open. A few moments later, we see a different shot of the car with the door closed. Then a truck drives by and tears the car door off which is open again.

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Bugsy Malone picture

Revealing mistake: When Tallulah and the girls are acting in the Fat Sam's Grandslam song look at Tallulah as they sing the 'Ra da da da da da' bit. She looks straight into the camera.

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Money Talks picture

Continuity mistake: The whole big prison bus escape scene revolves around Chris Tucker being handcuffed to the French guy, but when Frenchy's friend arrives in the bus he stands up and hugs him while the handcuff is shown completely unlocked from Tucker's hand. In the next shot and the entire next scene they are still handcuffed together.

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Face/Off picture Face/Off mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: In the shoot 'em up scene at the hangar near the beginning of the film, right after Tito and Wanda take down Pollux, when Troy shoots an agent in the stomach and the agent flies back - you can see at least two cable wires pulling him backwards. You can first notice the 2 wires when the agent is running in slow motion right before he shoots him. (00:14:15)

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Beverly Hills Cop II picture Beverly Hills Cop II mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When the trio are driving to the City Deposit/Federal Reserve Bank, in the shot just before hitting the white/red booth, the extended crane arm with the second camera and seated cameraman are visible behind the booth (for filming from opposite angle). (01:03:25)

Super Grover

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Hang 'Em High picture

Continuity mistake: At the beginning, Eastwood dismounts from his horse to rescue the calf lying in the river. His horse is left standing in the river with the water up to his knees. When Eastwood places the calf on dry land, his horse is standing nearby. The horse's legs are dry.

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The Interpreter picture

Factual error: We are told at some point that Nicole Kidman has dual nationality because she was born in the US. In the final scene, when she is talking with Sean Penn about her future steps, she says she has been deported and given one day to leave the country. She was a US citizen, so it is impossible that she would be "deported".

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The Wolf of Wall Street picture

Continuity mistake: When Teresa is yelling and hitting Jordan because he cheated on her with the blonde girl in the limo, the car disappears and reappears between shots. (01:00:35)

ozwal13

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Snake Eyes picture

Revealing mistake: After the sniper is shot he falls through the wall. Look at his silencer when he hits the ground - it bends where it attaches to the muzzle. A real metal silencer wouldn't do that. (00:41:25)

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Robocop 2 picture

Continuity mistake: At the start of the movie when the gun store is being robbed, one of them fires a portable rocket launcher at the police car, causing it to roll over and spin. As it comes to a stop just outside the store, it's visible that the driver's side window has been blown out, and the vehicle interior is visible, however when the same guy prepares to fire the bazooka to finish it off, the window has returned and is completely intact.

Mercury

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