Ronin

Continuity mistake: During the chase scene, there is a Citroen XM series II (the citroen sign in the middle, on the front) and then there's a Citroen XM series I (the citroen sign on the driver's side, on the front). It changes back and forth a couple of times. There's also a difference at the bottom of the car; the series I carries the name Citroen XM on the left side, while the series II bears a Citroen sign on the left side and the XM sign on the right.

Continuity mistake: During the big car chase the Audi S8 rams the Citroen, pushing back the headlights on the Audi but on the subsequent scenes in the town the front of the Audi is intact.

Continuity mistake: When Gregor tries to sell the case, he puts the Jeep into park (we hear the sounds of an automatic transmission, and in a brief shot of the pedals there's no clutch). But he jolts the car forward a minute later without shifting into drive.

Continuity mistake: At the end of the Paris car chase with the BMW M5 and the Peugeot, Jonathan Pryce fires a few shots at De Niro and Jean Reno in the pursuit car. One shot takes the left wing mirror clean off, and De Niro even jerks his head to the side in reaction to the shot. The mirror comes off in mid frame, and you can even see the adjustment wires dangling from the mirror base. In all subsequent scenes, the mirror is back on the car.

Continuity mistake: In the early scene of the arms deal, when they are waiting in the car for the arms dealers to turn up, Robert De Niro (in the back seat) is initially unshaven, but then later in the scene he is clean-shaven.

Continuity mistake: In the car chase after the bald guy with the suitcase, when his car approaches a fish market inside Nice, you can see a guy with a water hose running to the right, to avoid being hit by a car. His hose is connected to some point on the left, however in the following shot there is no pipe across the road.

Continuity mistake: When Spence draws the sniper ambush scenario on the whiteboard and gets stopped, the cup of coffee is set down on a small table. When Spence backs away into the cup, its handle has turned itself around. (00:27:30 - 00:28:20)

The-Immortal

Continuity mistake: After the first big chase scene, Robert De Niro is seen with the group in their hideout. As he treats the man who was injured, he puts the bottle of alcohol down twice.

Continuity mistake: In the apartment with Diedre, Seamus's hand jumps from the bottle of scotch to his side.

Continuity mistake: When Gregor is in the chase scene at the old stadium, he runs/falls down some stone steps and loses his wire-rimmed glasses. In the next scene, he is wearing them once again, looking over his shoulder for Sam, who is chasing him.

Continuity mistake: In the middle of the film when Gregor is selling the suitcase onto the Russian guy in his jeep, you can see that when Gregor puts his foot on the accelerator the other guy jerks about and the last shot we see his head is down, yet the following shot he is looking at Gregor before the splatter of blood on the window. (00:55:05)

The-Immortal

Continuity mistake: Near the beginning, when the group are talking over the ambush to steal the case, Sam walks to the table where Deidre is and Gregor follows. When Sam accidentally knocks the cup off the table, Gregor's hand changes position on the cup between when he catches it and the following shot. (00:14:30)

The-Immortal

Continuity mistake: On the freeway chase scene between the BMW and the Peugeot, when the BMW gets flipped over and slides and the Peugeot hits it, the BMW goes over the edge and Peugeot slides round almost facing backwards. In the following shot from the ground the Peugeot has changed direction. (01:29:55)

The-Immortal

Continuity mistake: While chasing Deidre the dividers between the lanes change. Right after the chase leaves the tunnel all the views of the road scene looking back at the cars show a road with a solid concrete divider separating oncoming traffic. But all the "driver's eye" views of the road show a post and guard-rail type divider.

Continuity mistake: At the start of the Nice ambush for the silver case, the bad guys are shooting at Sam who is leaning against a grey car. He ducks behind it, but in the following wider shot Sam is still leaning against the grey car. (00:43:10)

The-Immortal

Continuity mistake: At the start of the first chase scene in Nice, Jean Reno walks across the road to test the traffic lights device. There are concrete cones to the right of the screen, NOT by the grocery store, yet, on the overhead shot, when he is trying out the lights, three have appeared in front of him next to the grocery store. (00:41:55)

The-Immortal

Continuity mistake: During the arms deal scene at the beginning, when Vincent and Spence go underneath the tunnel approaching the arms dealers boss, one of them shouts, "Stop!" He raises his right arm when shouting, but in the following close-up he has actually raised his left arm. Zoom in required. (00:21:45)

The-Immortal

Continuity mistake: Just before the group goes out to collect the weapons from the buyers at the beginning of the film, the group are gearing up to go out, and Sam is talking to Deidre about the arms people. When Deidre burns the piece of paper and walks away her hair is obviously going down her back, but in the following shot there is now no hair on her back. (00:15:50)

The-Immortal

Continuity mistake: In a close up of one of the alloy wheels on the BMW during the big chase, the wheel has changed style to a cross spoke.

Continuity mistake: During the big car chase the Audi S8 rams the Citroen, pushing back the headlights on the Audi but on the subsequent scenes in the town the front of the Audi is intact.

More mistakes in Ronin

Jean-Pierre: At the end of the day we are likely to be punished for our kindnesses.

More quotes from Ronin

Trivia: In many of the stunt car scenes you can see the actors apparently driving. The producers used British RHD cars and fitted phoney steering wheels on the passenger sides to make it look as if the stars were really driving.

More trivia for Ronin

Answer: Sorry for posting an off-topic comment, but why are so few questions and mistakes posted anymore?

In large part it's reduced traffic, sadly - I'm always running a bit of a backlog of submissions (about 200 currently), because life gets in the way, but some get auto-approved so there's often a trickle of new content regardless. Mainly though it's just that thanks to search algorithm updates the site's now getting half to a third of the traffic it was about a year ago. I think also there are just fewer mistakes being made! Going back a while a DVD would come out and people would spot a lot of relatively obvious things. Now so many get fixed with CGI before release, and with streaming being wholly digital, lots of things are fixed even after release.

Jon Sandys

Thanks for all your hard work.

Brian Katcher

You're welcome! I've got no intentions of abandoning it, whatever the traffic. Still enough regular and irregular visitors to keep it trundling along!

Jon Sandys

I second that! Jon does an amazing job.

raywest

Thanks! I've got no intentions of abandoning it, whatever the traffic. Still enough regular and irregular visitors to keep it trundling along!

Jon Sandys

I have to assume it's just down to 1) maybe less people are submitting, and 2) the site primarily being run by one guy (Jon), and I have to imagine that he probably doesn't have the time to constantly check the site and do updates. I've noticed that sometimes it can take a while for things I submit to be posted, but they usually are within a week or two. To be fair, there's also been in excess of 600 mistakes posted within the last month, and I have around 60 mistakes waiting to be approved (going through the "Chucky" movies and shows looking for mistakes), so it's still happening... just a bit slower than it used to be back in the day.

TedStixon

I don't think it's a problem with fewer submissions. I've submitted several questions that have not made it onto the site yet, and mistakes were that were finally posted after an unusually long time.

I know there have been volunteers who do a lot of work here, but maybe that has dropped off.

raywest

Have been wondering the same thing.

raywest

Answer: Regarding the movie question, there's no way of knowing what was in the case. It is a plot device called a "MacGuffin," a term coined by director Alfred Hitchcock. It doesn't actually matter what the object is but is just something that drives the story. It can be any type of object or device such as a "secret formula," "enemy war plans," a "nuclear weapon," a "treasure map," and so on that the characters are either searching for or protecting. There was never any intention to reveal what it was. Its purpose is to motivate the characters' actions and tell the story. Most likely it was intended to be a McGuffin just to keep the audience guessing and thinking about the movie long after it ends.

raywest

More questions & answers from Ronin

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.