Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) - 58 mistakes

Factual error: When the collected bad guys are at the "North of the Border" truck stop, a subtitled henchman tells Jeremy Irons that the helicopter will be ready in ten minutes. But the confused fellow actually says, "...in zwanzig minuten," which means TWENTY minutes!

Visible crew/equipment: There is a shot towards the end of the film, (just before Willis and Jackson exchange dialogue in the engine room) in which it shows the entourage of people boarding a smaller boat from the much larger ship. Look towards the bottom left corner of the screen as the boat pulls away - inside you can see the head of a female boom mike operator.

Factual error: When Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson are in the minivan with the feds, the bad guy rings up. This call is taken on an old Motorola flip phone. They plug it into something to make it hands free loud speaker. The thing they plug it into is actually the house charger that comes with the phone, it doesn't have a loud speaker and it's also mains voltage. You can even see the spare battery in the second slot at the back of the charger and the red LED flashing to indicate that the battery is charging.

Continuity: When Bruce Willis swerves into Central Park, he pulls the steering wheel hard left, but the next shot shows the car turning right.

Factual error: In the North of the Border scene when McClane's helicopter makes an emergency landing you can see a Giant Food trailer in the background. They are supposed to be in Canada, but this grocery store chain is located in the Mid-Atlantic states. This scene was actually filmed in Jessup, MD where Giant has its headquarters.

Factual error: When Zeus goes to Yankee Stadium, the terrorists tell him to report to the home-team dugout. Yet when Zeus goes to Yankee Stadium, he is shown at the dugout along the third-base line, which any Yankee fan knows is the visitor's dugout. Given he knew which dugout he was meant to go to, and the importance of the situation, this can't just be a character mistake.

Revealing: When Willis is driving through the park, you can see the tyre marks and lines where they had driven there on other takes.

Factual error: During the bridge scene, when Willis and Jackson jump down to the passing ship, check out the background landscape - it is marshy with NO evidence of ANY tall buildings. Since this movie was supposed to take place in NYC, there should be a building somewhere. That scene was shot in Charleston, South Carolina; they chose SC because there are two suspension bridges right next to one another. Action can occur on one bridge, while they film it from the other bridge.

Continuity: When they first start with the gold operation, Targo jumps on a large orange vehicle with some kind of drill on the front, already raised into the vertical position. He then jumps off and in the very next shot the drill raises from a horizontal to vertical position.

Other: Throughout the film Inspector Walter Cobb is as you would expect referred to as Walter. But in the end credits he is listed as Arthur Cobb.

Revealing: When the female terrorist goes to use the large drillhammer on the concrete wall, the force of turning it on causes it to "jump" in her hands. When the drill bit bounces against the concrete wall, you can clearly see the wall move back and forward about half an inch.

Continuity: When the two heroes are crashing through the city in the taxi, the car takes a significant beating. The bumper is pushed up from rough landings and there are long scrapes down each side. When Zeus skids to a halt outside Wall Street station the taxi is in almost perfect condition.

Continuity: In the scene where McClane jumps in the car because the Germans are shooting at him the first shot he gets in and his feet are all the way in. But in the next shot his feet are still out and then he brings them in again.

Continuity: When the No. 3 train is arriving at Wall Street, we see that that the head car is slowing, about to stop at the end of the platform. However, when McClane shatters the storm door window at the rear of the train to eject the bomb, we see the train is still moving at speed through a local station. This is because the train interior footage with McClane was shot on the actual subway here in New York, while the exterior shots were filmed on the set in Mount Pleasant, SC.

Revealing: When fighting with Targo on the boat, McClane pulls a chain, which trips Targo over. When we see Targo being tripped from above, you can see it is a stunt double - not only is he bigger than the actor playing Targo, but also his hair is grey unlike Targo's brown.

Continuity: When McClane is thrown out of the aqueduct he jumps into the Mercedes driven by Zeus. Then another car shoots at them and they're in a fight. If you look at it closely, the front window of Zeus' Mercedes is broken, but in the next scene it is like nothing happened.

Continuity: When McClane and Zeus are chased after escaping from the aqueduct, look at the right front light of the Dodge Ram the bad guys are driving. It goes from being broken to intact several times. Also, when McClane and Zeus stop the same Dodge Ram afterwards on the bridge, both front lights have magically become intact again and even though now the hood is missing, it's still obvious that the whole front part of the truck is significantly less damaged than before.

Deliberate "mistake": While most of the German spoken in the movie is correct (even if with bad accent) there is a translation error in the scene at Yankee Stadium. When the guy with the sniper rifle gets nervous and asks if he should shoot or not, the other one says,"Nein, wir brauchen den anderen", which would translate, "No, we need the other one", but the subtitles say,"We'll follow him", which they do.

Continuity: When the police van leaves McClane semi naked on the street, his beard is a mere shade. When he mets Zeus, 10 minutes later, his beard has grown much larger.

Continuity: When Willis washes the blood off his face after shooting the bad guy in the elevator, the "towel" he wipes his face has no blood on it at all. Even after washing the worst off with the water it would still be full of blood.

Continuity: In the North of the Border scene when McClane shoots at the wires to the North of the Border neon sign, one of the two wires falls and takes out the chopper. McClane then walks back to his downed chopper, looks back at the North of the Border sign, and you see two wires going to the sign.

Factual error: When you see McClane and Zeus being chased by the Germans in the pickup truck, you figure they're being chased somewhere around the Henry Hudson Parkway because you see all the trees. After they kill the Germans and McClane is "interviewing" the dead ones, you can see behind Zeus the exit 29 sign for Greenwich/Lake Ave., which is actually located on the Merrit Parkway about 20 to 25 miles away, north of the city. When McClane picks up the quarters again, you can see the exit sign again.

Visible crew/equipment: When McClain and Zeus leave the park in the taxi, you can see the stunt driver's reflection in the store windows during the closeup views of McClain.

Continuity: In the park with the water riddle, just before they argue about Zeus being a racist, you see both jugs. The 3 gallon jug is empty and the 5 gallon is possibly 3 gallons full. Then they argue. By the end of the argument, John says that the 3 gallon jug is exactly 2 gallons full and you see that the 5 gallon jug is full up, giving them the answer to the riddle.

Other: After McClane hits Targo with the chain and knocks him out, McClane searches him. Targo's body is not only in a different position, but the chain is wrapped around his head, which McClane never did.

Continuity: In the taxi scene were you see the ambulance escort pull onto the road; you see John swing around a corner going very fast, when Zeus says "slow the fuck down McClane". He gets ready to pass a large black car but the next shot (an in car shot) you can see that he never passes the car.

Continuity: When McClane is entering the subway, a man in a suit and a blond woman in a red dress pass behind him twice.

Continuity: When Samuel L Jackson is at Yankee Stadium, there is a close up shot of him and in the background you can see the water hose used by the grounds keeping crew. Moments later, when the camera is on a further shot, you can see that the hose is gone.

Continuity: In Harlem, when Zeus gets his arm cut by the black dude wielding the switchblade, another black dude is swinging the bottle toward McClane's head-with his left arm. The following scene, McClane gets his head injured from the same bottle wielded by the same dude-only this time wielded by his right arm not his left.

Continuity: At the beginning, when the big explosion occurs, watch the 2 last shots. Close shot from two blocks away: Big traffic jam. Wide shot from above: Half of the cars have disappeared from the same spot.

Deliberate "mistake": After the scene in the park with the jugs, McClane and Zeus climb over the fence. If you look at the fence you can see that the part of the fence they climb over has an extra bar on top to make it easier to climb over for the actors.

Continuity: When the taxi is driving through the park, the damage to it is constantly changing. Most noticeable is a dent on the driver's front wing.

Other: The winch attached to the front of the black pickup isn't particularly big, and its size governs how long the cable can be. From a side shot of the winch cable stretching from the pickup to the boat, there's no way the cable being shown comes from the winch on that truck: it's too long, it would never spool back onto the winch.

Revealing: When Charlie (the bomb technician) hears that there are still children in the school, he continues trying to disarm the bomb. Pay attention to the shots of the countdown timer. It goes straight from 1:01 to 0:59. There is no 1:00.

Continuity: Towards the end, when Bruce Willis notices the writing on the aspirin bottle, he leaves it in the phone booth and the camera jumps towards it a couple of times. In the first shot the writing's almost vertical, but in the following shots it's at a definite angle.

Continuity: When the police get to Chester A. Arthur school and the kids are all in the auditorium, we see Detective Lambert walk into the auditorium wearing no badge in his jacket pocket. In the very next shot, he is wearing it again.

Continuity: There is a scene where Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis are in a crowded park, and they have to defuse a bomb by measuring out water. Before they do that, he picks up a cell phone and calls a bad guy with it. When he is beginning the conversation, the cell phone antenna is down. They change to a different angle, and the antenna is up.

Factual error: The security guard at the vault door fires a few shots from his handgun (about 6) down the hall towards Simon and the other terrorists. He then loads one of the shotguns and calls for help. After finding that the front guard was a terrorist he fires 14-15 rounds from the same shotgun before he is killed. The problem is that it was a Remington 870. Like most shotguns that size they only hold 8 rounds, or 9 if one is chambered.

Factual error: When Simon is standing in the cellar and all the heavy and loud machines behind him are collecting all the gold, he is telling John about a riddle. John understands every word, but didn't hear the noise in the background, not to mention that Simon gets a perfect signal despite being underground. I wish I had that cell phone...

Continuity: When they drive through the park and jump off the rock they land on a pile of leaves which covers the hood. Some of those leaves fall off but not all of them - in the next shot the hood is completely clean.

Audio problem: After Zeus gives the bomb to the fake police officers, they all get into the blue Chevrolet Caprice and speed away. As they turn the corner, you can see the brakes being applied because of the brake lights being lit and you can physically see it slowing down, yet the engine revs are still climbing as if it's accelerating.

Plot hole: Simon calls McClane from inside the subway station, close to the bank's vault. The vault is supposed to have mega layers of concrete, iron and god knows what, and the subway is several feet beneath the surface. How can Simon manage to make the cellular phone work, with no interruptions and no signal problems?

Revealing: When Bruce Willis is searching the subway cars, take note of the passengers. The same people appear in the two consecutive cars. The actors just made minor changes such as adding/removing hats and glasses. The woman who screams is the most obvious.

Revealing: When Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson are climbing down the rope (or whatever it is) to get to the ship, the green Dodge falls off the bridge. If you play it at slow motion, you can actually see that the truck is tied by another rope in the back, which rips as the truck falls into the water.

Revealing: Right after the explosion, when Simon walks up to a detective and introduces himself as an adjuster for the bank, he asks if the detective can show him the way down. When the detective says yes he calls over an officer Murphy, who is facing the crowd. Murphy is already looking back and begins to walk to the detective before he is even called for.

Revealing: When the bomb explodes at Bonwit Tellers at the start, we see a van fly into the air. You can see the devices that throw it upwards.

Visible crew/equipment: In the taxi scene, you can see that the taxi is abnormally high, and there's a special strut rig under the front part of the car so it doesn't take a destructive beating in that whole racing scene.

Factual error: A picky, only-a-New-Yorker-would-care point: When Bruce Willis goes down into the subway, it's supposed to be the 1/2/3 lines (West Side trains). The station filmed is actually the 8th Street stop on the N/R (Broadway) lines; it's right by NYU.

Continuity: When John and Zeus use the cable to get down onto the boat the cable hits one of the guards and kills him - as it does that he fires his gun, but when Zeus tries to use the gun the safety is on.

Continuity: In the car chase scene where the Germans are in the Dodge Ram and Zeus and John are in the car, during the mid point of that scene you'll notice the ram has a hood, and a few seconds later it is missing it.

Continuity: During the Federal Reserve scenes, the driller machine cuts a hole in the wall into one of the gold deposits. In one scene, the gold is stacked at the same level. When we see the room on the television screen, there are 2 different height levels of gold in the room.

Continuity: When Samuel L Jackson runs down the stairs in the subway station, he checks the clock, which reads 10:19:10. Then when the train destroys the clock a bit later, the time's now 10:20:24, though well over 2 minutes has passed (only counting Samuel L Jackson's scenes, as Bruce Willis' presumably take place simultaneously. Counting them separately it's even longer).

Continuity: While in the police station, a chubby guy brings the suitcase with the liquid bomb and to explain how it works he dips a stick with the liquid and throws it away to make it explode. Watch now the guy behind him covering his hears: Headset off, then he puts it on; then suddenly, in a very brief shot, when he is behind the chubby man, the headset is off again. In the next shots he has it on.

Revealing: When John is fighting the huge German thug on the boat towards the end, he flips him over his shoulder and on to the steel floor, which slides apart. It is obviously rubber sheets molded and painted to look real. The shot is an overhead shot and only lasts a second.

Audio problem: During the heist in the Federal Reserve a lot of sounds are missing. For example, when Katya drops her bolt cutters, there is no sound as they hit the ground.

Revealing: When the truck is being pulled off of the bridge by the ship, if you look closely right before the truck plummets towards the water, there is no engine, transmission, or anything else in the engine compartment of the truck, which was left exposed after the hood fell off in an earlier wreck.

Deliberate "mistake": The German version is strange, because the English is dubbed, but the German (obviously) isn't. However, this means that when they're on the boat, and the guard shouts "nicht schießen" [don't shoot], Willis asks "was hat er gesagt?" [what did he say], and is answered "nicht schießen". Bizarre.....

Factual error: I'm afraid John and Zeus are in for a very nasty surprise when John uses a few drops of the binary explosive to blow apart Zeus's handcuffs. We know the explosive is sensitive to shock or impact, like nitroglycerine - we see samples being detonated by being hit. So, when John detonates those few drops it will set up an adiabatic shock wave, and since the binaries have mixed at this stage that is going to set the whole lot off. It's called a sympathetic explosion. Those two tiny drops are certainly enough - they couldn't possibly cut hardened steel if they weren't.