Gangs of New York (2002) - 86 mistakes

Other: In the scene of Bill the Butcher lying in bed with the naked women, one woman has a noticeable tan line from a bikini - a bit early for the bikini...

Factual error: In a scene set in 1862 or 1863 Bill the Butcher says: 'An Irishman will do for a nickel what a ****** will do for a dime or a white man for a quarter'. The first nickel 5 cent piece was coined in 1866. At the time of the scene the 5 cent coin was a small silver coin called a half-dime.

Continuity: At several times during the movie, Butcher Bill's glass eye changes to what looks like a normal eye. Also, if it is a glass eye, it shouldn't move along with his real eye. It should stay in one spot because no muscles are attached to it.

Factual error: When Amsterdam kills the man that shot Bill the Butcher in the shoulder at the theater, you can see bananas on the floor. Bananas were traded in the U.S. only after the Civil War.

Continuity: After Bill the Butcher stabs and beats Amsterdam's face badly (and brands him with a hot knife) notice how as time passes the wounds heal then reappear in varying degrees of severity. This is particularly true with the branding, which is almost absent by the end.

Factual error: When the Lords and posh folk are playing snooker they are using plastic tipped cues with blue chalk on the tip. These would not have been used in this time period.

Continuity: After Jenny gets mugged at the dock, the shot shows her pulling herself to a standing position on a crate. In the next shot, from farther back and up high, she is crawling over to the crate she just pulled herself up on.

Factual error: In one scene where Bill is in the Mayor's office, the mayor is sitting behind his desk and holding a bunch of papers, and on the upper right hand corner of the papers is a paper clip. Paperclips were not invented until 1899.

Other: Towards the end of the movie, when the mobs are breaking into stores/houses, the police come to try and stop them. The mob starts to throw rocks at the police. You can see one of these rocks, which look like they should be heavy, bounce right off of one of the officers' heads, and just bounce around as it hits the ground, like it weighs nothing at all.

Continuity: When Amsterdam arrives in New York City and is talking to his new friend, the bag he is holding switches from being held under his arm (camera shot from front) to being carried on his back (camera shot from the back). This happens at least four times in a row during the same scene.

Continuity: As someone pointed out earlier, the poster for the commemoration of the Five Points battle claims to be the 16th anniversary, but the date shows 1863 -- 17 years after the 1846 battle. To further add to the confusion, when William Cutting is talking to Amsterdam in the bedroom after the night at the brothel, he says, "I killed the last honorable man [Priest Vallon] 15 years ago [in the Five Points battle]." So which is it? 15, 16, or 17 years?

Other: When Bill, Amsterdam and Tweed are standing on the docks, Bill mentions his father died in battle in 1814, 49 years before the movie takes place. Later, Bill tells Amsterdam that he's 47 years old. That means Bill's father died before he could have been conceived.

Revealing: In the scene where Bill has Amsterdam on the table, he begins headbutting him. You don't even have to look closely to see that Amsterdam's head is obviously just a dummy head with hair sewn on it. You can even see Bill headbutting it, and the head bends a significant amount, just like rubber. If it were Amsterdam's actual head his skull would be shattered in several places and he'd be killed instantly.

Revealing: When Jenny gets mugged at the docks, a thug hits her in the stomach with a large wooden club. The club is obviously rubber, as it bends almost ninety degrees after hitting Jenny.

Factual error: When Monk's funeral procession is going down the street, the dog on Bill's porch appears to be a Doberman. The Doberman did not exist until the 1890s. Any importation from Germany to the US was not until the early 1900s.

Revealing: The scene where Amsterdam and Jenny are in the room together above the tavern, shortly after Bill's assassination attempt, Amsterdam pushes Jenny up against a 12 inch by 12 inch wooden beam. The problem is when he is pushing her up against this beam, you can see it flexing with the weight. Then Amsterdam is holding the beam, you can see that the beam is some type of cloth because the slight touch of his hand makes it dent in.

Continuity: When Monk gives an election speech we see Amsterdam and his buddies standing at a distance in front of a house. When the camera angle changes in mid-sentence Amsterdam is standing in the first row of the audience.

Continuity: When Amsterdam and Jenny continue talking after Bill has just left them in the bedroom, Jenny's hands keep shifting from both hands on her chest to just one hand between shots.

Revealing: In the first fight scene, Priest Vallon stabs a man from behind with his sword. You see the sword go under his arm where he holds it there.

Continuity: When Amsterdam just met up with Jenny after she stole from the house, he is holding a handkerchief to his neck were he was cut. Then the camera view changes and his arm isn't there and it was to quick for him to move his arm.

Continuity: In the scene where Bill is cutting up the pig and is about to show Amsterdam the "kill" spots, he wraps up a piece of the pig for an old woman standing nearby. He throws the meat to Amsterdam to give to her and then reaches to unsheath a knife strapped to his right side. After Amsterdam gives the woman the meat and turns back around the shot cuts back to Bill and he is seen unsheathing the same knife he was holding seconds before.

Continuity: At their first encounter after Amsterdam's return to New York, Bill asks him to come closer. Amsterdam comes around the post he was leaning on, then the camera cuts to Priest Vallon's picture, and when Bill says it's close enough you see Amsterdam coming around the same post again.

Continuity: The moment when Bill attacks Vallon is very badly edited. There's a shot of Bill raising his cleaver, and it must be at Vallon because he had his eyes fixed on him already for a while. Then you see Vallon's arm crushed by a halberd, then again Bill staring at Vallon, then Vallon turning around, unharmed as it seems, and finally Bill slashing Vallon with his cleaver.

Revealing: In the beginning of the Five Points battle it happens very often that people get hit badly with a sharp weapon but don't receive any wound. Watch for example in slow-motion how Bill sets out to mow down victim after victim with his cleaver. Later into the fight it becomes a lot bloodier, and sometimes the blood seems to come out of the weapon (e.g Monk's club seems to have a generous blood reservoir).

Continuity: When Jenny tells Amsterdam that she's leaving for California, she is seen walking through a stone walkway. The camera angle changes and she is seen just turning around a corner and the walkway is nowhere to be seen.

Continuity: After saving Bill, Amsterdam is met by his father's old friend. As Amsterdam goes to walk away, he is grabbed by the friend. Camera angle changes and he is seen being grabbed again.

Factual error: The Snooker scene appears incorrect, since the earliest form of Snooker was invented in India circa 1875 - by British soldiers. At any rate, the blue ball shown in the movie was not added to the game until even later.

Continuity: At the end of the fight in the bar between Amsterdam and Bill's Scottish henchman, Amsterdam is in four consecutive shots from two angles bent over in pain, leaning back, doubled over again, and leaning back again as Bill approaches him.

Continuity: Jenny pokes Amsterdam with her knife on the right side of the neck as he is trying to retrieve his medallion from her. Shortly afterwards, while walking back with her, he is seen dabbing the left side of his neck in two different shots, one of them pretty lengthy.

Continuity: The amount and position of the blood on Amsterdam's neck changes during the first fight with Jenny after he discovers she's a turtledove.

Continuity: During the theater scene a man tries to murder Bill the Butcher but Amsterdam saves his life. As Amsterdam is wrestling with the culprit his hat halls off but in the next scene its back on then off again.

Revealing: During the theatre scene, when the camera is behind the hanging actor and the crowd begins to throw fruit at the stage, the screen very briefly shakes; the cameraman was hit.

Other: In the scene where the little dog fights the rats it's supposed to kill 25 in three minutes. When the bag with the rats is opened something like 10 rats fall on the ground.

Continuity: In the shot when Amsterdam is lying on the table and Bill's cleaver is rotating in the air you see that he is wearing a checkered black-and-white scarf. This wasn't there before, and it's gone right after, and it would have been visible the way he was manhandled by Bill's men.

Continuity: After Amsterdam gets almost killed by Bill, Jenny is tending to him in a cave. She leans over him to kiss him, and while she does so a scarf that she had around her shoulders disappears.

Continuity: When Jenny and Amsterdam are lying in bed Bill suddenly sits in a chair next to the bed. He has an American flag draped over his shoulders. The way the flag is folded on the stars side changes when Amsterdam asks him if his shoulder is keeping him up, without Bill changing position.

Continuity: In the battle of Five Points a witch-like women with steel claws jumps at a man, already flashing her teeth in anticipation of a good bite. Before she lands on him she lowers her head that it ends up below his shoulder, but when the camera angle changes she's biting off his ear.

Continuity: Before the big battle of Five Points begins Bill's gang comes out from a decrepit house. In the first wide shot of the place there is no smoke coming out ouf the chimney of the adjacent house to the right, but a moment later when Bill's people start to emerge it's smoking heavily.

Continuity: When Amsterdam tries to kill the butcher and fails, the butcher straddles Amsterdam on a table and tosses a cleaver in the air. The cleaver rotates counter-clockwise so that the blade is rotating backward; however, when the cleaver lands, it is rotating clockwise so that the blade sticks into the wooden table. This would be impossible the way the cleaver is tossed into the air with a back-handed flip.

Revealing: In the last scene where Amsterdam is crossing the black man's arms, wait until the camera pans onto Jenny. In the background there is another dead man and you can see him breathing pretty heavily.

Continuity: When Jenny is picked as the queen at the stepping ken, as the older man walks up to her she is seen putting her hands on her waist. As the camera angle changes she is seen putting her hands on her waist again.

Continuity: After Jenny knees Amsterdam a second time, he grabs her by the throat but when the camera angle changes his hands are now at his sides.

Continuity: When Amsterdam is fighting Bill's henchman, Bill tells his other men to get Amsterdam off the man. You see his other men reaching for Amsterdam and when the camera angle changes, you see them reaching for him again.

Continuity: After saving Bill, Amsterdam makes a toast and puts his hand on his chest. Camera angle changes and his hand is by his side.

Continuity: When Bill is talking to the Mayor about politics, he is seen making gestures with his hand as he walks, but when the camera angle changes, his hand is tucked into his jacket.

Continuity: When Amsterdam and Jenny are kissing after the dance, He tells her to wait and she is seen lying on top of him. Camera angle changes and she is now seen lying next to him.

Visible crew/equipment: During the first fight scene at the beginning, the snow looks extremely fake. One shot zooms in on a man's foot. As he lifts it up the snow is lifted as well, like a sheet of cotton.

Continuity: After Bill throws the knife at Amsterdam, he is seen walking up to him and when the camera angle changes he is seen at twice the distance from Amsterdam then he just was.

Continuity: The scene during the riot where Bill and Amsterdam are fighting in the smoke, Bill takes what looks like shrapnel to the side of his stomach, but when Bill and Amsterdam face off (standing on their knees) just before Amsterdam stabs Bill, you can see Bill's vest has no cuts or blood from the shrapnel he just pulled out of his gut (and it looks like he is wearing a new vest).

Continuity: The scene where Amsterdam is climbing on the Portuguese ship, we see that there are still four people left in the small boat and we see that Johnny is the first one on the ship, so how did the rest of the gang board the ship before Johnny and Amsterdam? They even know that the ship has been ransacked.

Continuity: When William "Boss" Tweed tries to win over Amsterdam, he hands him a newspaper that covers the events at the church of the previous day. In the next shot Amsterdam's hands are rested in his lap and the paper is nowhere, and the following wide shot confirms that he hasn't dropped it on the floor.

Other: When Mulraney tries to kill Amsterdam and Amsterdam grabs him from behind there's is no way that he would just have put his arms around his neck and not neutralized the gun first. Luckily Mulraney was kind enough to shoot into the air and then drop the gun.

Continuity: After the party following Bill's attempted murder Jenny walks up the stairs. Amsterdam runs after her immediately to confront her, and when he storms into her room she is in the middle of cleaning Bill's blood-stained clothes. Besides, there's no water in the bowl.

Continuity: When Amsterdam and Johnny are looting the burning house Johnny gets trapped by a burning beam. Amsterdam can't make up his mind if he should continue the robbery or rescue his friend, looks at a heap of jewelry lying on the floor, then at Johnny, and when he grabs some pieces before he comes to his help there are only a few scattered around.

Continuity: After young Amsterdam grabs the knife his father was killed with he runs into the Old Brewery. You see his friend Johnny coming from inside while Amsterdam is running up the steps. Then a cut on Bill, then back to the brewery door, and Johnny emerges from the dark again calling out for his friend, and in this shot Amsterdam hasn't even reached the steps yet.

Continuity: In Vallon's death scene the blood streaks on his face change in at least three ways, most visibly those on his right cheek. Also the shaving cut he had inflicted on himself before the battle vanishes between two shots.

Revealing: In the scene when Bill confronted Monk outside the barber shop, Monk invites Bill in to settle their score the democratic way. As Monk led the way, Bill threw his big butcher knife into Monk's back. The knife can be seen bouncing off Monk's back onto the ground.

Continuity: When Amsterdam is walking with Jenny after getting back his necklace, he is seen wiping the blood on his neck. Camera angle changes and he's not wiping the blood, and when the camera angle changes again he's wiping the blood again.

Continuity: During the first quasi love scene between Amsterdam and Jenny (after the dance) there is a shot where they begin to kiss, and they are at about the same height, right next to each other. In the next shot, Amsterdam pulls away, and you can see that she was laying back, and he was leaning over her, kissing - a completely different position.

Continuity: When Amsterdam is walking through the streets for the second time with Bill, Monk knocks Amsterdam's hat up so he can see his face. When he hits it up, the hat goes up on Amsterdam's face. Then they show Bill, then Amsterdam again, and the hat is back down shading his eyes. After a shot of Monk, they show Amsterdam again, and the hat is back up away from his eyes.

Continuity: In the very beginning of the movie priest Vallon is shaving. The reflection in the mirror shows a wispy, short mustache, but when we see Vallon's face as he speaks to his son his mustache is thick and twisted.

Continuity: When Jenny rubs her fingers over the old scars on Amsterdam's chest, you can see light under the tips of the scars as if they peeled up.

Continuity: During the funeral, when they are transporting the coffin in the street, there's a dog besides Bill the Butcher. He keeps changing place.

Continuity: When Amsterdam jumps at the killer to protect Bill, the way he takes off to the right and the way he grabs the hand with the gun coming from the left side don't fit.

Factual error: Before Jenny and Amsterdam make love she reveals a scar that, according to her, was the result of a baby taken out. The position of the scar would have been good for removing the left lung, but a bit far away from the uterus.

Continuity: When Amsterdam comes to Bill's place for the first time there is a little altar with priest Vallon's picture. It has an inscription saying 'In Memory of Priest Vallon, 1846'. When he comes the second time and has his fist fight with McGloin the picture falls on the ground. When Bill put's it back on its place the inscription isn't there.

Revealing: In the middle of the battle of Five Points Monk swings his club horizontally at shoulder level, but the swing ends on a victim's ankle. When the bones break it's very obvious that it's a prop.

Continuity: When we see young Amsterdam run off with the knife that was used to stab Priest Vallon, he puts the knife into a little cubbie hole in the floor. 16 years go by and we see Amsterdam as an adult return to the same cubbie whole, but this time when he pulls out the knife it is wrapped in some type of a cloth.

Continuity: When Bill gets shot, he is standing above the man who shot him and depending on the camera angle, the blood spot on his left arm changes size and location. Happens about 4 times during the scene.

Other: In the sequence where the "Natives" celebrate the 16th Anniversary of their victory over the "Dead Rabbits," we can see that the year is 1863 while the battle shown in the beginning of the movie happens in 1846. Shouldn't they have been celebrating 17th anniversary instead of a 16th?

Continuity: When Vallon lies on the ground after Vallon has stabbed him he is tightly surrounded by people. When you see his son holding on to his dying father you should see other people's feet, but there aren't any. Also from the lighting of the scene you can tell that these shots were taken with no crowd around.

Continuity: In the opening scene, priest Vallon cuts the right side of his face with the straight razor. Later on, when Bill and Vallon are belittling each other before the brawl, there is a scar on the left side of Vallon's face.

Revealing: In the Five Points battle scene, in the beginning of the movie, look at Bill the Butcher's blades when he walks through the crowd towards Priest Vallon. There is no sign of blood on them, even after he stabs a lot of people.

Revealing: When Bill gets shot at the theater blood gushes in quantities that could only come from a main artery. His obvious fitness in the following sequences speaks agains it, though.

Continuity: Before the Ghoul Gang leaves the Portuguese ship, Amsterdam throws the captain's body into the boat. It lands more or less under the seat, but in the next shot the body is placed right at the bow.

Revealing: When Amsterdam meets Bill for the first time as an adult Bill is playing Whist. Because he is pissed with a guy whose bet isn't high enough he pulls his knife and pins the man's hand to the table. When he does so the hand isn't anywhere near the point where the knife goes in, and when Bill pulls out the knife again you see that it was stuck in the table and the man's hand was resting next to it.

Continuity: In the scene where the future Ghoul Gang shares the booty, Amsterdam provokes the leader who is sitting down while the others are standing behind the table. The guy jumps at him, while the others stay where they are, but before he reaches Amsterdam the others guys separate them, emerging mysteriously from the sides.

Continuity: At the end of the Five Points battle, when the defeat of priest Vallon is announced, there are some shots of his shocked followers. In one you see Monk with a pretty clean face, but when the camera closes up on his face it's full of measles-looking blood stains.

Continuity: When Amsterdam is in the Chinese ballroom the first time, he shows an unfolded sheet of paper with a drawing to the man sitting across the table from him. In the next shot, he hands the paper - which is now folded - to the man, who then unfolds it.

Continuity: When the four scapegoats are being hung, the man on the extreme left makes a speech. While this goes on, the man on his right has his noose tightly round his neck. When he finishes, the crowd clap and the hangman pull his hood down over his face the noose on the man next to him is still tight. The scene cuts to the front of the gallows, and the hangman now put the noose over the head of the man next to him.

Continuity: At the beginning of the riot, some rich men are talking while playing snooker. The balls are placed differently depending on the camera angle.

Revealing: When Bill the Butcher kills Priest Vallon at the Five Points battle, the blood squeezes from Vallon's flank wound in an obviously fake way.

Continuity: When Amsterdam meets Jenny for the second time he is seen stealing what looks like an apple and is in his right hand. When she runs away he doesn't have the apple, but when the when the shot is on Amsterdam the apple reappears for him to throw it to the ground.

Revealing: In the battle of The Five Points, there are at least two instances where you see "blood" splattered over the lens.

Factual error: In the funeral procession scene, the priest is wearing the maniple on the wrong arm. The maniple is a 2 ft strip of ornate cloth prescribed for use in the Catholic Mass before Vatican II in the early 1960s. It is actually worn of the left forearm; however, in this scene it is on the priest's right.

Continuity: The level in the Butcher's drink changes from shot to shot during the celebration of the defeat of the Dead Rabbits.