Best crime movie mistakes of 2019

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The Irishman picture

Factual error: While handling the ignition coil cable to the distributor cap, Joe Pesci tells De Niro that the timing chain needs adjustment in his truck. A truck of that year with an inline Chevy motor would not have a timing chain at all, instead this truck would be equipped with a direct drive timing gear. Even if it had a timing chain, it would be behind the water pump and a cover. It would have been a several hour job to replace, not possible to adjust it.

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Motherless Brooklyn picture Motherless Brooklyn mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: When Lionel returns to the jazz bar and discovers Billy Rose has been killed (framed as a suicide), you can see two people standing in the shadows to the left of Lionel as he enters the main room where the stage is located. A man is hunched over, whilst a woman is standing still wearing what looks like a dust mask. (01:32:27)

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Joker picture

Factual error: Based on the films being shown at the theater, the movie appears to be set in 1981. One of the TV commercials shows the Energizer Bunny, which didn't make its first appearance until 1988.

wizard_of_gore

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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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Shaft picture

Other mistake: During the restaurant shoot out between Jr and the bad guys, he takes Sasha's weapon (Kel-Tec P-3AT) and opens fire on the bad guys. The Kel-Tec P-3AT is chambered in .380 and holds 6+1 rounds. During the firefight, Jr fires 9 times. We also see the bottom of a spent casing and it shows .22. (01:12:00 - 01:13:00)

Movie Medic

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Murder Mystery picture

Continuity mistake: After Sandler shaves in the cabin he gets back on the deck unshaved. When they appear at the dinner he is shaved.

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Hustlers picture Video

Continuity mistake: At the ATM, when Ramona is pulling money out, you can see the reflection of a police car pull up behind her. It pulls up just as she begins to turn around and nobody is getting out in the reflection nor are lights on. But suddenly when she turns around several officers are already standing with guns trained on her and the lights on.

Quantom X

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Cold Pursuit picture

Continuity mistake: Right after the scene where Nels saws up his gun, he walks into a store with his arms folded. His hands are down close to his stomach. When it cuts to the next angle, they are much higher at his chest. (00:26:51)

Quantom X

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21 Bridges picture

Character mistake: Toward the end of the film, Detective Davis orders Captain McKenna to put his badge on the table. New York City police always refer to their "shields", not badges.

bnemirow

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I See You picture

Character mistake: Detective Spitzer went into Harper's dark/unlit house, saw his partner Greg on the floor, and then saw Alec standing in the kitchen. Without identifying himself, telling Alec to drop his weapon (pistol pointed toward the floor), or bothering to determine what happened, Detective Spitzky shoots Alec. (01:27:08)

KeyZOid

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True History of the Kelly Gang picture

Factual error: As well as the sergeant's stripes on his cuff, Sergeant O'Neil wears three pips on his epaulettes, which would indicate a much more senior rank and would not be worn together with the stripes.

Necrothesp

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Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles picture Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mistake picture

Continuity mistake: En route from the front door of Wayne's mansion to the table in the Batcave, the pile of pizza boxes in Alfred and then in Mike's hands continues to change in size and number: at first the pizza girl delivers 11 boxes, Mike slams on the table just 8, but he brought down the stairs twice that amount (without counting through freeze-frame the precise numbers, it's simply obvious at first glance that the pile is bigger in some shots and the pizzas themselves are pictured of inconsistent size).

Sammo

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See You Yesterday picture

Character mistake: Right at the beginning of the movie, introductory technobabble. "In this canister, there's a solution of protons. The canister is attached to a rotor circuit that generates the protons to the speed of light." I believe the science genius and creator of time travel mixed up the words "generate" and "accelerate" here. (00:00:50)

Sammo

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Queen & Slim picture

Character mistake: Queen is an attorney and should know how to conduct herself as a passenger in a car pulled over by police, yet she fails to behave in an acceptable way. Even though certain things may be permissible under certain circumstances, a lawyer should know exceptions and extenuating circumstances, but she apparently does not. She did not have the right to interfere with a police officer and "demand to know" or get out her cell phone to record if she was told to keep her hands where he could see them. (00:10:25)

KeyZOid

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Once Upon a Time in London picture

Factual error: In 1940 3 of Alf White's men are arrested. As they are taken out of the pub they were in Alf and his son stand in the doorway. To their left (viewer's right) are posters for Floyd Patterson (who would have been aged 4 or 5 at the time) and the Platters (formed in 1952) and Lonnie Donegan (started performing 1949). (00:20:03)

spinner

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Gully picture

Other mistake: Jesse does not talk because of his traumatic childhood (which includes being kidnapped at a young age by Mr. Charlie), so it doesn't make much sense for him to be the narrator.

KeyZOid

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10 Minutes Gone picture

Revealing mistake: Obvious use of green screen for buildings across the street. On and off, the background fades, and buildings appear higher or lower depending on the camera's angle. At one point, the angle of walls behind Rex (Bruce Willis) is at a downward angle, and his head is almost touching the ceiling. (00:06:10 - 00:07:25)

KeyZOid

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Z (2019)

Plot hole: Dr. Seager told Beth that "It [Z] was all in her head" and only she could stop it. How, then, did her son Josh have the same "imaginary friend Z"? Moreover, if Beth had Z as a friend when she was eight years old, why didn't she remember him or have her memory jogged when Josh first told her about his friend Z? Also, if Beth told Z that they would be together forever (get married and have a lot of kids), why would Z need to go through Josh to get to her?

KeyZOid

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The Forest of Love picture

Continuity mistake: At the concert before Murata starts performing, a woman is holding a baby. The baby is shown holding a packet in its arm, with the arm resting. It then cuts to a different angle, where the baby's arm is suddenly raised slightly. (00:49:45)

Casual Person

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