Continuity: In one scene, Clive Owen takes a piece of pizza and a bottle of water to the young boy who is being held hostage. The piece of pizza stays intact throughout the scene even though the boy is obviously eating it.

Revealing: When the policemen are looking at the security camera tapes, it is obvious that one of the infrared rays doesn't come from the lamp. It seems to come about 30 or 50 centimeters from the left.

Other: When Washington went back to his room at the end just before he pulls the diamond out of his pocket. He unloads his Glock. The magazine doesn't have any bullets in it and there wasn't any noise of a bullet falling out of the chamber as he moves the slide back.

Continuity: During one scene, Clive Owen's female accomplice opens the safety deposit box. Then she moves and Clive Owen steps up to it. She moves behind him, but in the next shot she's next to him.

Audio problem: Towards the end of the movie, Jodie Foster talks to Christopher Plummer in a bathroom. He starts to talk about his past in World War II. His lips say fifty years ago, but the words you hear are sixty years ago.

Factual error: At one point, Denzel's character, a detective, gives orders to an Emergency Services Captain, who obeys them. In the real NYPD, a captain outranks a detective and would never take orders from his subordinate.

Deliberate "mistake": At 1:44:31 a close-up of a bank safe deposit records document shows box sizes that don't match the sizes of the boxes themselves shown at 0:58:41 and 1:55:21. The document shows box 378=3x10, 379=5x5, 384=5x5, 388=3x10, 396=5x5 but the boxes themselves appear to be 378=5x5, 379=5x5, 384=3x10, 388=3x10, 396=10x10.