LA Confidential (1997) - 29 mistakes

Revealing: When the body of Miss Lefferts is being viewed, the 'dead' girl blinks slightly.

Continuity: When Kevin Spacey is alone in the bar looking at the $50 bill (quite a close up), it's a bill dated from the 80's or 90's.

Factual error: In the scene where Lt. Exley arrives at the Night Owl after the murder, the patrol officer is wearing a Safariland velcro-fastened handcuff case on his left hip. That style of rounded cuff case was not introduced until the early to mid 70s.

Continuity: The stunt double's hairline is quite different than the actor's, when Bud White holds him over the balcony.

Continuity: In the scene where Lt. Exeley resets the clock, the first time you see the clock it is exactly 5 minutes after 2. When Exeley puts on his glasses to see the time, it is clearly only 3 minutes after 2 oclock!

Other: When Jack Vincennes goes to the hotel to stop actor Matt Reynolds from sleeping with the DA, he finds Matt's dead body on the floor with his throat slit. In the closeup of Matt's face, you can clearly see the living actor's pulse in the left side of his throat.

Revealing: When Exley talks to Vincennes about Rolo Tomassi, Guy Pearce's Australian accent accidentally slips when he says, "I just wanna solve this thing."

Continuity: When Exley ends up at the boxes at the end the fight, they are in a different position than at the beginning of the scene. The third row of boxes are now pushed in so that there is a place for Bud White to put Exley's head.

Continuity: Exley's eye injury is much worse at the Victory Motel, and it's on the wrong eye all of a sudden - for the rest of the movie.

Continuity: Bud and Exley are sitting in their car talking - Exley looks OK. His lip and eye are almost healed and there's only a little black and blue on the upper part of his left cheek. Than in the next scene with Lyn he looks like he's been beat up again worse than before.

Audio problem: When Bud White goes into the records room to 'handle' Exley, he begins to beat him. When Exley pulls out White's handgun and points it at him you hear him cock it. The next shot is of him holding the gun but the gun isn't cocked.

Continuity: It's the scene where Russell Crowe is holding the D.A. out of a window. On the wide shot, he is holding only one of his legs, and the other is flailing about. But in the tight shot, he is holding on to both of his legs.

Continuity: When Bud White pulls into the driveway at Pierce Patchett's house to question him about Susan Leffert's murder, the wind is causing a tree top (top center of the frame) to sway. Before Bud opens the car door, you can see the tree come to a sudden stop in a position different than that of the last frame.

Continuity: When Bud White beats up on Exley the light on the desk gets blown out. Later in the scene it's back on again.

Continuity: They shut all the blinds at the Victory Motel, but later some are open again.

Continuity: The extras out on the road below the ledge of DA Lowe's office are trying to be inconspicuous, but you can see that they are aimlessly walking in one direction, then the other, each time you see them.

Continuity: Lynn gives Bud White a glass of scotch at her house but it disappears and reappears again.

Continuity: Exley has gauze or cotton stuffed on the left and right side of his upper lip (a la The Godfather). It's supposed to look like swelling from the unbelievable beating he just took. If you look at him closely in these several shots, the amount of cotton in his lip changes. Then later the bruises are only on his left cheek, with no swelling of his lip.

Revealing: In the scene where Bud is holding the DA out of the window you can see a wire attached to the DA's legs to stop him from falling.

Deliberate "mistake": When White almost fights with Exley in the street and is pulled away, the public mailbox by the side of the road is all blue. Mailboxes back then were red on top and blue on the bottom.

Continuity: In the final shoot-out, Officer White advises Detective Exley that he is going under the building by pointing to a square open hole in the floor. The first shot of the hole shows it is clear with nothing blocking it; when White walks over to it there is now a board covering the hole that he has to kick through to break it.

Factual error: During the interrogation room scene, it is very bright in the room looking into the interrogation room, and it is dimmer inside the interrogation room. Although this would mean that the suspect would be able to see everyone watching as for him to just see a reflection, it needs to be bright his side, and darker the other side. True the glass could have been slightly reflective on one side, but the laws of optics still apply.

Continuity: Mrs. Lefferts' glasses move from being under her handkerchief that's on her head to on top of it without her taking them off. This is when Bud White interviews her in her home.

Other: In the fight scene, Exley hits all the soft boxes, but he rams his head into his hands so he doesn't hit the hard file cabinet.

Continuity: When Kevin Spacey goes looking for the maroon Mercury Coupe, he drives up to the house where it is and the garage doors are closed. When he sneaks up one of the doors is open.

Visible crew/equipment: The shadow of a boom mic moves on the bookcase, above Bud White's head, in DA Lowe's office.

Continuity: Exley's little cow lick bangs, on the left side of his forehead, changes a lot throughout this scene.

Audio problem: When Bud White meets Captain Dudley for a drink in the bar, he says, "What do you want, Captain?" but his mouth moves to a different sentence.

Factual error: When Kim Basinger is watching the film of Veronica Lake in her house, we hear the dialogue... but the projector is not a sound projector. It can't be a separate audio tape because she only turned off the projector, but the sounds stopped at the same time.