Behind Enemy Lines (2001) - 61 mistakes

Continuity: After seeing his pilot get shot, Owen Wilson's character starts running uphill while being shot at. Of course you know he's being shot at because you can see the tracers. However, after cresting the hill, and starting down the other side, you STILL see rounds going past him. How did they get smart bullets?

Factual error: Just prior to taking off from the carrier, you see clear shot of the pilot activating the "master arm switch". This arms all the weapons on board the aircraft. You would never arm your weapons until airborne.

Continuity: The three Marine helicopters leaving the carrier are three UH1N Marine model helicopters. When they arrive in Bosnia to rescue the downed Navy pilot the same helicopters become two Bell model 205C and a Bell 412. When landing back on the carrier with the rescued pilot, they are again N models.

Factual error: Shortly after our hero ejects you see the pilot flailing around trying to pull the ejection handle. In a Navy aircraft with two crew, the NATOPS manual (Naval Aviation Training and Operations Manual) clearly states that the seats must be set in the "command eject mode". This means, regardless of who initiates the ejection procedure, the rear seat goes first, followed by the pilot 1/2 later. There is no need for the pilot to pull the ejection handle.

Continuity: Owen Wilson's character is being chased and falls into the mass grave covering himself with another body. As he crawls out he is covered in mud. In the following scenes neither he nor his uniform have a trace of ever being in mud.

Plot hole: As Burnett runs through the minefield, he clearly runs right into much of the exploding debris. Why does not even one bit of shrapnel hit him?

Continuity: Barnett takes a drink of the Coke from the girl. When he goes to have another slug of the Coke, there is more in the bottle.

Continuity: Gene Hackman's character, Riegart, begins the movie as a two-star rear admiral. Later in the movie, however, shortly after the second stand-down ordered by NATO Admiral Piquet, he wears three stars on his collar, signifying a promotion to vice admiral. This is highly unlikely, as he spends nearly all of the movie in the grease with his superiors.

Visible crew/equipment: Just after Stackhouse is executed, Burnett runs up then down a hill. Once he's over the other side he falls and rolls down a steepish incline. In the background (top left of screen) you can see set vans lined up nicely along the side of a road.

Continuity: During the scene in which in the downed Navy pilot is roughing it out in the abandoned factory, before the mines start exploding, you can see that the spot of blood on his left cheek keeps on mysteriously disappearing & reappearing.

Continuity: When Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson) jumps in front of the red truck to get a ride it slides to the right while the skid marks slide to the left.

Continuity: During the ejection sequence there is a major problem with the parachutes used by the crew. When you see the first parachute open, it is a standard Navy Conical round canopy with 3 colours; Orange, Green and White from the bottom view. A moment later they are flying ram air rectangular parachutes with different colour patterns.

Other: When Stackhouse and Burnett are being chased by the SAM, they pull to the right after deploying flares and you hear a voice on the radio say "Chaff, Chaff, Chaff". Chaff is a cartridge of small metal strips released as a countermeasure for radar guided missiles. These small strips add noise to the radar and clutters it up giving the pilot about 5 seconds to evade the missile. Throughout the scene, several indicators such as the flares and exploding fuel tanks suggest that they are fleeing from a Heat-seeking missile, not a radar guided one. To add to this, the voice on the radio wasn't that of Stackhouse or Burnett and was added for radio effect.

Continuity: When the pilots are talking about the DMZ, they point to the left of the plane (port side) then you see the forest move from right to left. The plane is now headed in the opposite direction.

Plot hole: After Burnett changes his uniform and runs away from the soldiers, he and the other man run to the pick up site just to watch the chopper turn around. During that time, the Bosnians release TV footage of a dead man telling Americans it's Burnett, and the American TV does a little news update about it. But the run only took them ten minutes, how could anyone have enough time to release news about it?

Factual error: Gene Hackman's aide was a Master Chief. In the real Navy, an admiral would have a commissioned officer as an aide, such as a Captain or Commander, not a non-commissioned officer, such as a Master Chief.

Plot hole: According to the last radio conversation between Owen Wilson & Gene Hackman, the final "RP" was "5 clicks East". Why then, after a short run to the pickup ride, did he travel 26km in the pickup to the war-torn town of "Haq"?

Continuity: In the scene where Burnett falls into the graves, those watching the infrared satellite image on the carrier say that after Burnett falls, he never moves. If he doesn't move, then how did get under a body?

Factual error: The SAM that shoots the heroes down is absurd. While AGM's can look for their targets on the ground, a SAM will not turn around repeatedly once it has passed its target.

Revealing: Gruesome but wrong. When the other pilot is murdered, the killer shoots him in the neck pointing downwards, but the spray of the blood-pack is from his forehead up high.