Factual error: When the sedan is struck by the train, it launches into the air and explodes, but doesn't sustain severe impact damage. The car rolls over in midair and it is nearly straight - not heavily bent or crushed as the entire left side should have been. Even a slow moving train heavily batters the passenger vehicle it hits. Submitted by John W Rosa

Plot hole: When the armored guy is propelled under the tanker trailer, his backpack explodes. That blast can not have been large enough to lift the entire trailer through the air. The trailer never explodes itself, and if it did, the tank itself would have torn apart and the frame beneath would have stayed on the ground, pushed down by that blast above. (Oh, and there's no such "safety feature" that is intended to launch a trailer in the air in case of an accident.) Submitted by John W Rosa

Continuity: During the car chase involving the car driven by the Chinese guy, Murtaugh, and the mobile home, the two cars slide against each other and the right wing mirror on Murtaugh's car is completely wrecked. Once the two cars are separated the wing mirror has miraculously repaired itself. The left wing mirror also does a disappearing / reappearing trick.

Deliberate "mistake": During the big gun battle right before the last fight scene, Riggs is shown driving a forklift, and knocking over some barrels on top of Jet Li's character. When the forklift does the 180 degree turn, you can CLEARLY see that it is not Mel Gibson, but is an Asian stunt man.  He must have been the only stunt man on the set who could drive a forklift.

Continuity: In the scene near the end of the film when Murtaugh shoots at Jet Li and mistakenly kills the last of the four fathers, you can clearly hear an empty shell casing hit the floor, although he is using a revolver, which do not spit out the empty shells as they are fired.

Continuity: In the scene where Mel Gibson And Danny Glover drive a car through an office you see Mel floor the car in one shot, and when they show a view of the car you can see the brake lights are on.

Revealing: The shark Joe Pesci catches is unbelievably fake - you can even see the seams.

Continuity: At the end of the movie when Riggs, Murtaugh and the other two cops enter the garage where the Triad chief is buying the four fathers' freedom whe can clearly hear the hard rain outside, but the car that they're driving is completely dry - maybe they had a very big umbrella!

Continuity: More geographical problems: During the scene filmed on a supposed L.A. highway where Mel is on a table loosely connected to a semi, the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas is seen in the background.

Continuity: Near the end when Butters is shot, Danny Glover is holding Butters' head up, you can see Glover's tie down on his chest and in the next scene it's over his shoulder, and then the tie is back on his chest in the next scene.

Continuity: When Riggs is on the table and jumps into the moving car, the table is run over by another car. A few seconds later you can clearly see the table still attatched to the plastic.

Continuity: In the scene where Mel Gibson throws the table leg at the man's car, the table leg makes a hole and the glass around cracks. Each time the camera focuses on the car the amount of glass that has cracked has changed.

Continuity: When Riggs suggests that Murtaugh take his clothes off to distract the gunman, Murtaugh's tie suddenly drops and his collar is undone. In the next shot his tie and collar are done up again.

Continuity: When the car launches towards the office block you can clearly see the rollcage and missing passengers.

Continuity: After Mel shoots the human tank's napalm valve and he goes flying under the tanker truck, Gibson hops over the hood of the car he's behind. In the next shot he and Glover are running away from the falling tanker as if Mel had never moved.

Continuity: Near the beginning, when the tanker trailer is blown, you can see where each of the charges are placed the moment it blows as well as see the rear wheel of the tanker mechanically fold under.

Continuity: Right before the highway scene, the distant mountains are green and lush, but when they get onto the highway, the mountains become close and desert-like. This is because this scene was done on the empty, brand-new I-215 in Las Vegas.

Continuity: During the gunfight with the armored man, more and more bullet holes continue to appear on Riggs and Murtaugh's side of the car which is facing away from the armored man with the gun. And in one brief scene from the armored mans view, there are no bullet holes on the side of the car which he had fired at and hit several times.

Continuity: The scene on the highway where Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are chasing the black Mercedes in their Pontiac, the windows on the Mercedes repeatedly change between tinted and non-tinted.

Continuity: During the mobile home chase, you can see a white car following Murtaugh. In the next shot, when he starts to overtake the mobile home, the car is black.