U-571 (2000) - 46 mistakes

Continuity: In the start of the film Matthew McConaughey is sitting on a porch at a wedding reception smoking a cigar, in one shot he has a stub left then in the next it's a new one.

Factual error: In the ship yard after the party, one of the navy crew is working on a sub and he is using a yellow plastic handled grinder. All tools in this era were metal handled. He's also wearing tennis shoes.

Factual error: When the marine commando shows the sailor his "luggage" (the boxes of explosives) to be loaded onto the submarine, some of the boxes have orange Explosive B placards. Those are Dept. of Transportation placards. The D.O.T. didn't exist until 1966 and the placards were not used until later than that.

Continuity: As the submarine is preparing to leave the dock in one of the movie's first   scenes, Bill Paxton, the commander is standing on the top part of the sub. A seaman is walking in Bill Paxton's direction and the camera is at a distance. As the camera zooms in the man walking should have been in the frame under Mr. Paxton but he just disappeared.

Continuity: During the first mission briefing, the commander is pointing to the map and you can clearly see the top secret photos of the enigma sitting by the manila envelope, but right after that shot he pulls the photos out of the envelope and hands them to people.

Audio problem: When the U-boat captain is called onto deck,he orders his machine gunner to fire at the sailors who are rowing towards them. As soon as he fires the ammo belt gets used up straight away, however the sound of the gun carries on for a short while longer.

Factual error: When the American crew storms the U-571 and reaches the aft compartment, where the last Germans are gathered, we can see a row of bunks on each side of the chamber. The VIIC type has no crew acommodation in this place; the last compartment houses just the electric motors and some pumps and auxiliary machinery, as well as the breach of the aft torpedo tube.

Continuity: When the German in the bunk goes to shoot Matthew McConaughey, the man fires but the bullet doesn't hit the wall, only about 2 feet away, for a much longer time than it would have really taken. Also, when the American soldiers pass by the spot a few minutes later where the bullet hit (when they are looking at the dead German's ring) the bullet hole has suddenly disappeared.

Other: There is a scene where Eddie, the mess steward, is taunting the German prisoners while writing numbers on their chests. Watch his writing hand as he's working on 11. He makes an awful lot of strokes, including several horizontal ones. You can see from the next guy, 12, that Eddie's ones are just simple vertical lines, so there's no reason for him to have spent so much time writing on 11's chest. Except that it gave him time to say his whole line.

Continuity: When the S-33 is torpedoed, the boarding party members (including Tank) stand motionless, staring at the destruction in horror. Then Tank shouts "The scuttling charge!" and hurries towards the aft hatch to disable the explosives. Five seconds later, as the Chief throws a rope to Tyler, Tank can be seen standing motionless behind him, still staring at the destruction in horror.

Deliberate "mistake": When the Americans are in the U-571 battling the resupply sub, Tank gets the engines running and starts the sub moving forward. There is an exterior shot of the sub's propellers, with the port prop turning counterclockwise and the starboard prop turning clockwise. Then Tyler wants to turn right to heading 010, and he orders "Starboard back full", which should reverse the direction of the starboard propeller to help turn the sub. Two exterior shots later, however, the props are shown still turning exactly the same way they were before Tank reversed the starboard engine.

Factual error: Shortly after the crew of the S33 are forced to take to the U571 and destroy the German Supply Submarine Tyler announces that they will try to sail to Greenland or Land's End (England). From their mid-Atlantic position they would, therefore, need to sail east. In the next scene the submarine is seen on the surface sailing from left to right across the screen with the sun on the other side of them. Since from the North Atlantic the sun would always be to the south this must mean they are sailing west, away from Greenland and England and towards the United States.

Audio problem: When they spot the long range plane circling the U boat Mazzola starts yelling saying, "Do something Rabbit." A quick shot later you notice that he is still talking but his mouth is not moving.

Continuity: When Mazzola is shot in the engine room he takes down the German, first he has hold of the German by the neck, then the collar, then the neck, then the collar again.

Continuity: After the German captain has attacked Tank and handcuffed him to the crane, the pattern of blood on Tank's face changes at least twice. First, he has two channels of blood running down the left side of his face under his nose and on his chin, and no blood on his lips or the right side of his face. Then, when Eddie and Tyler arrive, there is blood smeared all over Tank's nose and lips. Finally, after Tyler takes the cuff off and is yelling at Tank, all of a sudden there is a line of blood from Tank's nose across his cheek to his right ear.

Continuity: When Tyler is unhandcuffing Tank and Mazzola's body is lying beside him, in the long shot of the scene, it looks like Tank and Mazzola are a few feet away from each other. But in the overhead shot, they're right beside each other.

Continuity: Just after Mazzola's been killed, Tyler unlocks the handcuffs from Tank. The handcuff starts swinging as soon as Tank pulls his hand free, but in the next shot it's stopped moving.

Continuity: Just after shooting the radio room on the German destroyer, U-571 submerges so quickly that the sailors do not manage to plug the gun. After a few moments when the boat goes from 180 to 200 meters there is a short shot from the above when we can clearly see that the gun is perfectly plugged.

Factual error: The film is set during the war and there is a Toyota forklift driving around in one of the dock scenes....

Continuity: When the U-571 goes to 200m, it springs a bunch of leaks and everybody gets soaked. Then, there is a shot looking past Tank's left shoulder at Tyler and the chief talking. In this shot, Tank's shoulder is completely dry. The camera angle changes and then changes back, and in the next shot at this same angle Tank's coat is now dripping with water.