The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) - 31 mistakes

Plot hole: When Renee Russo was reviewing the tape showing the room with the painting to see who stole the painting, and the tape was blank because the heat generated from the suitcase hidden under the bench, why didn't she just back up the tape completely to see who put the suitcase there in the first place?

Continuity: The framed thieves communicate between themselves in Polish. Later on, they are supposed to be Romanian.

Continuity: In the opening sequence, when Crown decides to walk and has "Jimmy" meet him at the office, he is almost run down by a truck. First of all, the truck has to skid to a stop, yet there is a car no more than ten feet in front of it when they change camera angle. Why was the truck going so fast in the first place. Secondly, when Crown motions for the driver to pass, the same car is still stopped directly in front of the truck, yet the truck speeds off in a way that it should smash into the car in front of it.

Revealing: During the catamaran sailing scene, the boat jibes and Brosnan leaps across the trampoline and starts grinding on an empty winch, with no line in it.

Continuity: When TC and Catherine Banning are having breakfast together at TC's house, Jimmy brings Catherine her green shake to drink. In one of the first shots, the glass is only about two-thirds of the way full, however, in the next shot, when she goes to take her first sip of it, the glass is almost filled to the top.

Revealing: During the glider scene when they show the close up of Catherine's face with Thomas leaning over her from behind, waving his hands, if you look at her sunglasses you can see all the white screens, the camera crew, the reflection of his hands, etc. You can see this every time they show a close-up of them from the front of the glider.

Factual error: The helicopter that was supposed to be used for the theft at the beginning is a Sikorsky S-76 and they said it would be useless because it can hold only a payload of 300kg. This helicopter can actually carry 4000kg or 12 passengers.

Continuity: When TC steals the Monet, he places the painting in the briefcase and closes the case breaking the frame in half and thus ripping the edges of the painting. When at home he opens the briefcase and the frame is obviously crooked but when he holds the painting up to place it above the fireplace it is perfectly intact and the painting is not damaged.

Continuity: During the scene when Thomas Crown is sailing, you can see the weather change from very dark and stormy, to just cloudy, to blue sky and sun, depending on the shot.

Factual error: The Monet stolen by TC is credited as being the first painting in the Impressionist school, a clear reference to Monet's "Impression: Sunrise" of 1872. However, the painting shown during the entire film is "San Giorgio Maggiore by Twilight," a 1906 Monet painting.

Revealing: At the beginning, when Thomas Crown is in his car, getting ready to get out and walk up to the museum, they show a close up of his wrist watch to set the time; it says 9:08 a.m. A few minutes later when he is sitting inside the gallery eating his breakfast croissant, if you look carefully at his watch, it shows 4:30. In various other shots, it also shows 5:25 and 6:30, indicating at least 2 hours spent shooting the gallery scene.

Factual error: The man in the security room, when watching the thermal video footage states that the thermal cameras needs a difference of ten degrees (or something like that), thermal cameras operate within a range of two degrees so it would have to be a fairly rubbish camera and that's unlikely, seeing how it's guarding a Monet and all.

Plot hole: At the end of the movie when everyone is standing in the gallery looking at the painting now back in place (with the smoke and sprinklers still dripping) they notice that now there is a new painting missing, the one Thomas stole for Catherine. However, none of the other metal wall coverings open or move except for that small side one revealing the empty frame on the wall. This makes no sense why only that one would suddenly open and none of the others.

Continuity: In the glider scenes, the shots from the front show the sighting window in the canopy placed on the right side of the glider. But in the shots from the side, it is correctly placed on the left side.

Continuity: When Crown's attempting to repeat his golf shot, he flattens the ball into the sand. Then when we see the club hit the ball, suddenly it's on top of the sand.

Factual error: During the scene where the thieves are coming out of the Trojan horse, during a shot you can see a pile of sawdust in a cone formation on the ground. This formation couldn't have formed since the thief was sawing a line in the horse, not drilling one hole.

Revealing: When Crown enters his office for the first time, he goes up to the window and looks at the river. Just as the camera points out the window, a bright light is seen to shine on Crown's face so that his reflection in the window is clear.

Continuity: When they land in Martinique, and are on the airstrip loading up the vehicles, their luggage and the painting go into the second vehicle, a shiny black jeep. However, when they show the aerial shot of them climbing the mountain to Crown's house, the jeep is now painted in camouflage colors.

Visible crew/equipment: When Crown nearly walks into the lorry at the beginning you can see cables of sort in the left hand mirror from the shot inside the lorry.

Continuity: When Crown returns home straight after stealing the Monet, the high external shot shows him open the door with his left hand. In the next internal shot he is opening it with his right hand.