Deliberate "mistake": Riggs handcuffs himself to the depressed businessman. They jump off the building but they're not handcuffed to each other anymore. They used plastic cuffs which could separate during the stunt in case anything went wrong. They break just as they jump, so they grab each other's hands to stay in contact.

Continuity: In the scene where the girl jumps to her death from the balcony, it shows her hitting the car towards the right halfway onto the windshield. Then in the next shot, it shows her laying right in the middle of the roof of the car.

Continuity: In the scene where "the General" and his driver were fleeing down the alley, the diver is shot. The general takes control of the wheel and carries on driving, but the car is in park...

Continuity: At the end, when Riggs is at his wifes grave, it's supposedly raining. In one shot you see Riggs' hair is dripping wet, and when you see him bend down to put the flowers on the grave in the next shot, his hair is dry, and in the next shot it's wet again.

Visible crew/equipment: When the car crashes into the bus and lands on its top, you can see a big square hole cut out of the car's underside.

Continuity: During the scene where the General is escaping in the car and Murtaugh shoots the driver. When the car is hit by the bus on the avenue you can see part of the device that makes the car flip over and roll away from the crash.

Continuity: There is a scene where Gibson and Glover are driving in a car, and the column shifter keeps going from park to drive and back.

Continuity: When Hunsaker's shot, his eggnog gets all over his tie and shirt. When the camera angle cuts to Murtaugh's reaction, Hunsaker's shirt and tie are clean and there is no eggnog pouring from the container. Also there is no hole of any kind in the glass door behind him in which the bullet made.

Audio problem: When Hunsaker gets shot through the window we hear the sound of a pane shattering, but there is only a small hole with a few cracks in the glass (not really typical for an ordinary window anyway).

Plot hole: Before Amanda jumps she climbs up some steps onto the railing without holding on to anything. However, in none of the earlier shots (or later when Murtaugh searches the room) there is anything on the balcony that could have served that purpose.

Plot hole: When the little boy points at Riggs' tattoo he could hardly see it as Riggs' sleeve was down. Only when it's pulled up does the tattoo become visible.

Continuity: The wet patches on the sleeve of Nick's t-shirt change when the family surprises Murtaugh in the bathtub. Actually, when they carried the B-day cake in, the t-shirt should have been dry in the first place as the water battle started only later.

Continuity: Just before Hunsaker's shot, he's standing right in front of the window. When it cuts to a wider shot, he's suddenly a foot or two further left.

Continuity: The Christmas illumination on the balcony of Amanda Hunsaker's hotel room is arranged in three different ways: In the first shot, before she takes drugs, it is attached to the side of the railing. When she steps out, the lights are hanging about 10 inches below the railing, like they are later when Murtaugh searches her room. And when she climbs up to jump the bulbs are directly hanging down from the railing.

Revealing: When Murtaugh's car is going towards the meeting point, there's some extra dust coming from the right, caused by crew members.

Continuity: While working out the case at the shooting range, Murtaugh starts unloading his gun as the conversation's ending, and as the chat's been constant back and forth, we know there have been no cuts. He's only fired one shot, and Riggs has fired 9. When they reel in the targets however, Murtaugh's target has 6 holes, and Riggs' has 14 or 15.

Continuity: (Director's Cut) As Murtagh later states (and Riggs does not correct him), Riggs' 9mm pistol has a 15 round clip and holds one more 'in the pipe' (barrel), yet when he took out the sniper earlier, he fired at least 19 rounds in a single, rapid sequence.

Continuity: When coked-up Amanda first looks down from the balcony, we see the ground from her vantage point. Were she to jump from this location, she would land on the huge awning below (the curved dark area). If she put real effort into jumping forward to clear the awning (and she didn't), she'd land just to the right of the lighted sidewalk, onto the grass. And if she were an olympic long-jumper and not high on cocaine, she might have landed on the red or black car parked at the curb. Under no circumstances could she have landed on the gray car, well to her left - yet she does.

Continuity: As Riggs exits the car, he takes the cigarette out of his mouth. The camera angle chages to show him standing outside the car, handling his pistol, and the cigarette is back in his mouth, with no time to put it there and the audio indicates the shots are consecutive time.

Continuity: Just as his wife is about to smack Murtagh's butt at the oven, a small ladder is at the right, angled to face Murtagh's position. As the shot changes to get a bit closer, the ladder is suddenly more parallel with the cabinetry.