Ocean's Eleven (2001) - 67 mistakes

Continuity: Linus and Rusty are standing in the Botanical Garden at the Bellagio going over Linus' observations. Rusty has a cocktail glass of shrimp in hand. When they change angles he has a plate in his hand, then change back, it's a glass.

Plot hole: Where do the flyers come from that are in the bags that are carried out of the vault and into the van? Danny and Linus couldn't have taken them down there and there is no room with the Chinese man. They are carried out to the van before the SWAT team appears, which means they'd have to have been in the vault to start with? In the commentary by Steven Soderbergh he acknowledges that there's no explanation.

Deliberate "mistake": Walsh, the casino manager, is with Saul Bloom, watching the briefcase being put into the vault. However, at the exact same time, Walsh is seen escorting Frank Catton from the building.

Continuity: When Rusty is talking to Linus, giving him instructions, he is constantly eating an ice cream with a spoon. When he sets the ice cream down and leaves the room the entire ice cream is still there, two untouched scoops of ice cream. Obviously the cup was refilled during a cut.

Plot hole: When Bruiser (the man who's supposed to beat up Danny) is faking the noises of punching Danny, the two thugs can hear him through the door. But earlier, he punched Danny by accident, then started to talk to him. The thugs should have been able to hear their talking through the door as well.

Visible crew/equipment: When the Malloy twins are introduced and seen racing each other with the monster trucks, the camera crew is seen several times in the reflection of the trucks. First when the camera pans out to see the large truck and then at the top of the door when the close up of Turk Malloy in the big truck is shown.

Continuity: Note the bad cut as the Chinese man is first knelt down looking at the briefcase on top of the mobile safe then a camera angle change shows him stood and looking behind him before positioning himself to jump. Then note how his body angle changes when falling off the top of the cabinet between cuts. Look carefully to the right of the screen and you can see a Perspex sheet wobbling.

Continuity: In the race between the big truck and the radio controlled little truck, the position of the tires relative to the start line changes between scene cuts.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where the Chinese acrobat is climbing out of the movable money safes in the casino vault, when he is actually climbing out you can see someone behind the movable safe helping the acrobat out. And then the camera angle changes, then at the left side, behind the safes, you can see the persons foot or back. It's black in colour.

Continuity: When Basher is driving the white van in to set up the pinch, it has some kind of logo on the side, then in the next shot it's gone.

Continuity: In the scene where Rusty and Linus are talking about Benedict, (the same scene where the glass turns into a plate and back) the napkin also changes positions on his arm and the way it is laying.

Continuity: When Rusty and Danny are trying to convince Gould to bankroll them, Gould, while eating salad, has four objects next to his right hand. The two-cylinder object changes orientation. From behind Gould, it is turned away from him. From in front of the man, it is turned towards him.

Visible crew/equipment: When Tess is looking at the painting just before Terry Benedict joins her, the man on her left side explaining about the painting wears glasses that reflect the camera crew. It is especially clear if you watch it in high-definition.

Continuity: When Danny leaves prison after his probation violation and meets Rusty, he is wearing the tuxedo he was arrested in and has an untied bow tie. The location of the untied bow tie changes several times.

Continuity: When Danny and Rusty try to convince Reuben to join the team, the first shot from behind Reuben shows him picking up a fork, but in the next shot, his hands are gesturing in front of him.

Continuity: When Rusty is sitting next to Saul at the Greyhound race track, just before Rusty leaves, he puts his beverage/orange ice cream down, watch closely and you can see that the spoon switches sides between shots.

Continuity: When Rusty and Danny are at Reuben's house talking to him over lunch, the three objects to the right of Reuben on the table (one of them is black, the other two are gold) change position between shots.

Continuity: In the scene just after the group have discussed the plan in Reuben's house, it cuts to Frank listening to a conversation about crazy horse. When we see Frank noting information down on a crossword his left hand is writing and his right index finger is pointing out and the other fingers are folded like a fist, but in the following shot all his fingers on his right hand are stretched out.

Continuity: At the start of the film when we first see Rusty at a card table with the actors & actresses, Rusty leans over to give the deck of cards to Josh. In this shot Rusty lays the deck on the table with his left hand, Josh reaches over for them but doesn't pick them up, yet in the following shot the deck of cards are suddenly in Josh's left hand.

Continuity: When Basher is first seen, he is blowing up the vault door, and the charges go off. There are 3 charges after the main bar in the middle of the vault door that blow. In the close up its still only on the second one yet in the previous shot we see 3 explode after the bar in the vault door.

Continuity: When Linus is on the train with Danny watching him, his pen changes from being in his right hand in one shot, to being in his mouth in the next shot.

Visible crew/equipment: When the men are standing around the EMP generator, the camera crew is reflected in the glass of the device.

Continuity: Danny's face changes quite a bit between being beaten up and being put in the police car. Stubble and bruises vanish suddenly.

Continuity: In the scene where Tess is stepping out of the elevator and she runs into Terry, her hair is in a sleek, perfectly-styled French twist. Then in the next shot when she turns to him and says, "You of all people should know, Terry, that in your hotels, there's always someone watching." Her hair looks messy and disheveled.

Continuity: When Rusty and Linus are talking to each other in the hotel room, Linus is all dressed up in a suit rehearsing his part in the scam. When Rusty says "Where are you gonna put your hands," he puts his hands together, yet in the following shot from the front, his hands are back at his side.

Visible crew/equipment: After Rusty makes the proposal to Benedict and Tess finds him on the casino floor, the next shot shows Benedict thinking. When the camera pans across you can see the reflection of the crew in the glass wall behind Benedict. You can see this over his right shoulder for a few seconds. The crew is also seen in the next shot panning back across the room in the same exact place.

Continuity: When Tess is first coming down the stairs, if you look closely you can see she is not wearing any shoes. But when it cuts to her coming down the last few steps she has on some high heels. Which would have very noticeable while she was walking down the previous steps.

Continuity: According to Everett at the end of the movie, the word Bellagio on the vault floor was made a few days ago. Now, go back and look at the scene which features a tilt shot of Danny and Linus entering the vault - one can see that there is no Bellagio on the vault floor.

Continuity: In the scene in the middle of the film where Livingston is telling Danny that he has been red-flagged, Reuben is sitting on a couch smoking. In one shot we see him from the front taking a puff with his cigarette in his right hand, then in the following shot from behind Reuben the cigarette is now in his left hand.

Continuity: Near the end, Linus and Danny are waiting at the elevator doors for the gas to take effect on the two guys at the vault door. Danny and Linus open the doors. Danny, in one shot, has his right arm up holding the door open, and in the following shot it is resting on the floor.

Continuity: When the Malloy Twins are racing, the weather alternates from being totally overcast to sunny. When they first start, it is overcast. When the race starts and the camera pans in on the race car before it is flattened, there is sunlight on the side of the car.

Continuity: At the poker game at the beginning, Rusty says, "Guys, whats the first lesson in poker." In this shot, between Danny and the actor with the gold like jacket on, the actor with no cards in his right hand raises his left hand to talk to Rusty. However, in the following shot from Rusty's POV, that actor is now holding the cards in his right hand.

Continuity: When Danny and Rusty go to see Reuben, they are sitting at his table. In one shot Rusty's orange drink has less in it then in the next shot.

Continuity: When Rusty goes to talk to Danny in the warehouse where they are creating the replica, in one of the shots, you can see Danny is standing behind Rusty, in the following shot he is standing in front.

Revealing: When Yen jumps backwards onto the shelving unit during the con, you can hear a crew member say, 'Left' mid-jump.

Continuity: When Rusty frees Basher, there's a weird difference between shots. In the shot of them just as they start walking away from the car they were leaning against, they're by the bonnet and turning right slightly, so they should pass in front of the car. Then the angle changes, and they're now at the rear of a police car walking perpendicular to it. Not a different car, as it blows up shortly afterwards.

Continuity: In the scene where Danny is sliding the device to knock out the guards with uzis at the bottom of the elevator, the device slides on an angle to the line on the floor, but in the next shot it is sliding along the line. [On the DVD commentary, Soderbergh said that the filming crew had to slide the device many times, because it wouldn't slide far enough. There's the reason, but still a mistake.]

Continuity: When Rusty starts to thank the stripper for the access card, he removes the lollipop from his mouth to thank her and in the next camera shot he's removing it again.

Factual error: The 160-million dollars that the heist group carries out of the vault in several duffle bags would actually weigh about 6400 pounds and take up the better part of 2 cargo vans. A quick calculation: a stack of 200 $100 bills is $20000 (they can't have used $1,000 bills - while legal tender, they're steadily being removed from circulation, so there wouldn't be enough). Roughly 100 of these stacks would fit in a milk crate sized container, so we are up to $2,000,000. $160 million would require 80 of these crates. Figuring 80 pound per crate, that is 6400 pounds.

Visible crew/equipment: The camera and operator are reflected in the narrow mirror at Reuben Tishkoff's house as the gang discusses the robbery.

Continuity: Close to the end when Linus and Danny are on top of the elevator shaft, they stand up and start to take off the white jackets. If you watch closely, Linus takes his off twice between shots.

Continuity: When the Malloy twins are first seen at the race track, both of the cars roll up before the white line on the track, yet in all other shots they are on the white line.

Continuity: When Livingstone (pretending to be the Home technician) is trying to find his way out after hooking into the Casinos security systems, he is seen soaked with sweat on his shirt. A second later, when the Casinos security man is approaching him, the sweat stain has almost disappeared.

Continuity: Towards the end of the film, there's a scene where Tess runs into Terry as she's getting off the elevator to go find Danny - Her hair is smooth and styled into a French twist. As she's walking down the steps into the casino, Terry calls after her and she turns to face him - This time, her hair is wavy and in a different style.

Continuity: In the scene where we first see Sol getting his ticket for the greyhound race, he grabs the ticket with his left hand, but in the following shot it is in his right hand.

Continuity: Close to the beginning of the film when we see all the group inside of Reuben's house, when it cuts to Rusty in one shot, he has his hands folded or crossed, in the following shot, they are at his side.

Continuity: All of the SWAT team members are together in a group going down on the elevator. Yet, when Rusty is looking back on the events, Sol is moving slowly and behind the rest of the group because he's getting hurt.

Continuity: When some of the group are taking the Pinch from the institute, at the end of the scene Linus is looking up at the two security guards which are almost standing next to each other. In the following shot one of the guards is just slowly walking up to the other one, even though they were almost together in the previous shot.

Continuity: At the very beginning, when Danny is coming up on the elevator into the casino, when he is rising his jacket isn't buttoned, yet in the following shot the jacket is now buttoned half way down.

Continuity: Danny and Linus look through the elevator door at the guards outside the vault, it's open to fit both their heads in, it's also like this from their POV shot. But when they throw the gas grenade, the door is all the way open and Danny has to stretch to close it.

Continuity: When Basher is sitting on a chair explaining about a "pinch", there is an overhead shot of the group, and Sol is standing shoulder to shoulder with Linus, yet when it cuts to a face shot of all of them Linus is behind Sol.

Continuity: When Rusty is talking to Saul at the race track, Rusty leans over to tell Saul what they are planning to do. Rusty moves his face to Saul's ear and begins to whisper. In the next shot he is looking away from Saul and whispering without turning his head.

Continuity: Close to the end when Linus and Danny are going down the elevator shaft on the wires, when Danny says "go" to Linus, in the overhead shot you see Linus going down quite far ahead of Danny, yet Danny reaches the bottom before Linus.

Visible crew/equipment: When the trolley with Yen in is taken into the vault, the shot from inside the vault shows the reflection of the crew to our left of the door.

Continuity: Near the beginning, when Danny raises $2,000 in the poker game, there is a water bottle in front of Topher Grace. When Joshua Jackson calls, it's gone. When Rusty calls, it's back again. Gone when Topher calls, and back when Danny shows his cards.

Factual error: The EMP wave generated from "The Pinch" would do more than just black out the city. It would also permanently disable any electronic equipment such as Cars, mobile phones, TV Cameras (like the ones recording the fight, Mobile Phones, Slot Machines, Computers, in fact any electrical equipment used in the world today, More importantly the entire security system would have been disabled which means that Benedict could not have seen his vault getting robbed from the security room. The only way an electronic device can survive an EMP is if the device is turned off.

Continuity: When Danny and Linus are at the bottom of the elevator shaft, Danny cuts his wire and lands. When Linus cuts his there is a shot when Danny lands on the shaft floor, and Linus's feet are visible on the ground, yet in the following shot his feet land on the ground again.

Continuity: Just after Yen does his jump in the replica vault, Basher walks in and is explaining what happened. At the end when he says, "Barney Rubble, trouble", Rusty looks away to his right, yet in the following shot he is looking straight at Basher.

Factual error: The actual Las Vegas strip has the Bellagio and Mirage on the same side of the street, separated by Caesar's Palace. MGM Grand is very far down the road towards McCarran Airport. In the film, the Bellagio is across the street from the MGM Grand and the Mirage, with Paris in between the two of them. Bellagio is across the street from Bally's, which is next to Paris. I hope this description isn't too confusing. Furthermore, a wide angle shot of the strip shows the Mirage and MGM Grand right next to each other! Obviously this was a work of computer trickery. In a shot of Basher, before he sets off the pinch, in the Bellagio parking lot, the Bellagio is across the street from Paris. However, to the left of Paris is Bally's, and the Flamingo! Shouldn't the Mirage be in the spot that Bally's occupies, if we're going by the map that Danny Ocean gives us in the scene inside the house, where he first describes the security measures in the vault at the Bellagio? So the Ocean's Eleven version of Las Vegas is not even consistent with itself!

Continuity: When Bruiser first punches Danny, Danny bends over to slap the table and Bruiser puts his hand on Danny's back. The camera angle changes and Bruiser now has one hand on Danny's back and the other on Danny's side.

Revealing: When in the vault, the Oriental acrobat does a flip on to another structure. The flip has been digitally manipulated as his movements are very choppy and unnatural.

Continuity: When Sal and Rusty are at the dog track, Sal's bottom button is undone and in the next shot it is buttoned.

Continuity: When Danny is leaving the prison in the beginning the camera from the back shows him walking with his hands at his sides. The camera changes to a view from the front and his hands are now in his pockets.

Continuity: Early on when Rusty is teaching the actors to play poker, there's a scene when Rusty says "Shane, you've got three pairs...you can't have three pairs. You can't have three cards in a three card game." Look at Topher's (the man who wanted to pay Rusty by check) cards during this scene. At first, he's holding the cards up, then flat on the table, then back up again.

Continuity: Danny's hairstyle changes dramatically in some scenes in the movie. Most notably when he and Rusty are in the office building looking at the blueprints of the hotel vault. It looks like he just got a haircut. In the previous scene and next scene his hair looks longer and styled different.

Continuity: At the end of the film, when all eleven members are in a line looking at the big fountain, and they each in turn walk off, the man on Rusty's left looks at him, then looks away again. But when the shot changes to the opposite direction, the same man looks away again.

Factual error: The security cart that Yen hides in is supposed to be airtight. But when Rusty (Brad Pitt) closes the lid on the cart after Yen has entered it, the front left side pops back up slightly. That gap would prevent the cart from being airtight.