Red Dragon (2002) - 35 mistakes

Revealing: In the scene when Will is opening the drawer of films from the Leeds home, there is clearly a copy of Mrs. Doubtfire in the left column of tapes. How can that be? Red Dragon is clearly set "several years" after 1980, as the caption says, but before the 1991 Silence of the Lambs, but "Mrs. Doubtfire" came out in 1993.

Continuity: When Emily Watson first strokes the tiger on the table her watch says 11:15, on the next stroke her watch says 11:20. Then the doctor hands her the stethoscope and her watch says 12:00.

Continuity: When we first see Will Graham (Ed Norton) investigating the Jacobi household it is night time, yet once he is inside and heading up the stairs, the window behind him clearly shows dayight.

Other: When Ralph Fiennes wakes up after sleeping with Emily Watson we see the elaborate tattoo work on his back. We also see the blue overspray from the outside of the stencils used to create the tattoo.

Continuity: Before they reveal the face of the Red Dragon, they show him flipping through his book of newsclippings. He focuses on the face of the Tattler reporter and puts red markings through his face. When they show him closing the book, you can clearly see the face and the markings are noticeably different in the wide shot from the close up.

Continuity: In the scene near the end where Graham and his son are trapped in the bedroom, the Red Dragon attempts to break down the door. After many forceful attempts, we see parts of the door jamb and moulding break-away and stick out from the wall. However, when Mrs. Graham enters the room after the shootout, the door jamb and moulding are in perfect condition.

Continuity: When Dolarhyde is taking Emily to the zoo in his van, there is a shot of the road he is traveling on behind him. For the entire trip, he is driving on the wrong side of the road. [While it is a mistake, it could be deliberate, since Ralph Fiennes is from England, where they drive on the "wrong" side of the road.]

Continuity: When Will Graham (Norton) and the other investigator are at that restaurant, there's a car (it looks like a police car) outside behind Will's head that appears and disappears once or twice during that scene.

Factual error: In the scene where Will Graham is flying from DC to Baltimore to return the note to Lecter's cell, we see a panoramic view of DC and the Potomac River. We see him fly over the FDR Monument (located on the Cherry Tree Walk on the Tidal Basin near the national mall). Although that area was authorized a Park on September 5, 1959, the monument itself wasn't constructed until 1990 and was dedicated on May 2, 1997. It wouldn't have been there for him to fly over.

Continuity: When the janitor goes back to mopping after returning the letter written to Hannibal to his cell, he stuffs the rubber glove into his back pocket. When it is first shown, there is one finger sticking out, but when Hannibal notices it, there are two.

Other: In the scene where Norton's wife is target shooting with the revolver, you can clearly see that there aren't any bullet heads showing in the cylinder.

Continuity: In the scene when Emily Watson is petting the tiger, her hair alternates with the two shots: first it's tucked behind her ears, then it's not. It goes back and forth about 5 times.

Factual error: When the FBI scrambles the helicopter to return the letter to Lecter's cell in Balimore, the camera pans across a scenic view of Washington. You see the famous sites - the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in the bottom right of the screen. Trouble is the Museum opened in 1993 and the movie is set before 1991.

Visible crew/equipment: When we first see the "Tooth Fairy" he is lifting weights in a room full of mirrors. If you look close, you can see one or more crew members reflected in some of the mirrors. The most obvious is a man standing, whom I am guessing to be the director or a grip.

Audio problem: When Ralph Fiennes is in the Brooklyn museum, and hits the woman showing him the painting, over the head, you hear the sound before he actually hits her.

Other: This error applies to the DVD version of the movie. When reading the Lecter case files in the special features section, the dates in which the events of the movie take place are all in the 1970's. However, the movie says that they occur in the 1980's. Which is it?

Other: When Mr. Chilton and the staff are going over Dr. Lecter's room, the latter pokes fun at Mr. Chilton regarding some rejection slip to the Archives. Chilton, not amused, orders Lecter's toilet seat removed. Later on, when Will Graham visits Lecter, the toilet seat is still there.

Continuity: In the first house, the camera pans toward the mirror. The doll leaning on it changes positions, leaving the crack hidden in the first place, and visible a fraction of a second later. The hair of the doll also changes, covering its forehead first, and combed later on.

Continuity: In the first house Will visits, the first shot of the mirror shows a long drop of blood on the right, which becomes short in a following shot.

Continuity: Jack gives Will a picture, by placing it upside down on a table. The first close-up shows the table brightly lit, but from a new angle it's in the shade.

Continuity: Jack gives Will a picture upside down, and places a shell on top of it, right in the center of the paper. From a different angle the shell is on the right side.

Continuity: At the end, when Dolarhyde is holding Graham's son hostage, in alternating shots, the glass is in the kid's cheek, then in front of it.

Continuity: When Graham and Hannibal are talking for the first time, Hannibal walks right up to the glass wall and there is a close up of his face from Grahams side of the glass. You can see that there is no reflection of Graham on it, thus meaning that there is no glass wall there in between Hannibal and Graham. This happens frequently through out the movie.

Revealing: When Will stabs an arrow and shoots at Hannibal, a white vest underneath Hannibal's shirt is coming out on the right, to allow for the stunts.

Continuity: At the end, Chilton tells Hannibal there's a young FBI agent here to speak to him. He asks what her name is and the film ends. Assuming it's Clarice from "Silence of the Lambs," Lecter doesn't have the same drawings on the wall as he does in "Lambs" when she first visits him.

Visible crew/equipment: When Dolarhyde wakes up after the night spent with Emily Watson he notices she is gone. He runs naked all over the house looking for her. At the moment the camera turns from right to left to follow him when he runs towards the stairs to go up there is something (a piece of equipment or a hand) visible on the left side of the screen.

Other: When Graham is about to pull out the top video case shelf at the Leeds' home, you can see the movie "Jaws" on the second shelf. "Jaws" didn't come out on home video until 1991.

Continuity: Anthony Hopkins starts the film with a conservative mid-Atlantic accent that requires no heavy acting. When he is talking to Will Graham in the cell phone, he changes to a ridiculously broad Georgia drawl, even when he isn't doing "funny voices." How he manages to fit either of these in as a Lithuanian of Italian descent is anyone's guess.

Factual error: The dates of the two murders do not match any year of the 1980s. 25th of February occured on Saturday in 1984 and 1989, but the moon was not full on that particular day in 84 or 89.

Continuity: When Dolarhyde shoots Ralph Mandy outside Reba's house, it is very apparent that the red hole in his forehead is there before he gets shot. It's even more obvious in slow-motion where you can see the entry wound from the start and he reacts when the blood explodes from the back of his head and not when the bullet supposedly enters the from the front.

Factual error: Towards the middle of the movie there is a quick shot of a van driving down a road. To the right of the van on the side of the road is a solar cell that is powering a Department of Transportation device. This is the type of solar cell you see for the construction arrow signs on the side of the road telling you that you must merge. These weren't around in the 80's.

Continuity: Toward the end of the movie, Will Graham is talking to Reba at the hospital, and you can see that he has a pimple over his right eye. When he goes out of the room, Crawford hands him Dolarhyde's journal, and the pimple is gone.

Continuity: In the scene right before Freddy Lounds is abducted by Dolarhyde, he is driving his car back to the garage of the newspaper he works for. In the scene of him pulling into the garage, he has half his arm hanging out of the rolled down window, then in the very next shot the window is rolled all the way up.

Plot hole: When the FBI finds out that Dolarhyde knows where Graham lives, they send a chopper and some agents over to Graham's house to pick up his wife and son. His wife is startled by the noise of the chopper SUDDENLY appearing without any warning. How could she have not heard the chopper approaching or seen the light?

Other: When Graham and the police are headed to Dolarhyde's house (after visiting Chromalux), you can see a billboard as the police car squeals around a corner. It's an H&R Block billboard saying: "It's your refund. Get it faster." Didn't this slogan just come out a couple of years ago?