When John Billings, a member of the militia, finds his wife and child murdered and his house burned by Tavington's Green Dragoons, he promptly shoots himself in the head. But later in the movie, at the ending battle of Cowpens, you can see him standing in the ranks, getting shot if you look closely. See more...
At the beginning of the movie when Benjamin is taking the children to Aunt Charlotte's house in Charleston, there is a woman on the street that does not move, and wearing a big hoop dress. She is there to hide the fire hydrant on the street underneath her dress. See more...
Directed by Roland Emmerich, starring Chris Cooper, Heath Ledger, Jason Isaacs, Joely Richardson, Mel Gibson (add more)
Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.
In the scene where Benjamin Martin receives mail from the mail carrier, he fails to pay him the postage. At the time period, postage was always payed by the receiving party rather then the sender. [It was common practice at that time for well to do men, such as Benjamin Martin, to have an account at the post office much like he would have had at supply stores where he would pay monthly, or possibly after harvest times.]
At the scene where the surrendering redcoats are killed, after one kneeling is shot in the head, look to the left and a little farther in the background of this action. You can see an actor who is supposed to be stabbing a redcoat on the ground, but it actually looks like he's spanking him to death. [How do you know he was supposed to be stabbing him to death? We see the patriots using the butts of their guns to kill red coats throughout the movie. This particular one could be doing the same.]
During the battle of Cowpens, the bigot who has a change of heart says to the slave that "It's October" and "it's been over twelve months", meaning that the slave is free. All good and well. However, the Battle of Cowpens was fought in the month of January not October. [Although largely based on actual events, the film is an historical fiction. Plenty of details surrounding timeline, identities, actions, etc are changed for drama. In fact, the battle is never actually identified as the Battle of Cowpens in the film, though it's based on the real battle. The date was likely chosen to fit the timeline better.]
Gabriel writes in his letter that his friend was killed at Elizabethtown. Freeze the frame and you'll see that the letter actually states he was killed at Monmouth. [The requirement to freeze the frame invalidates this mistake.]
When the church is burned down and Anne is inside, the congregation is burned to death. Then, when they find the necklace that was given to Anne, it is still attached to the string. How could a ribbon and metal charm still be in good shape if the fire burned down the church? [Since it wasn't around the neck of Anne's body, we can assume that it fell off and then most likely got kicked by the panicked crowd into an area that didn't get as much fire damage.]
Corrected by Phixius
In the last battle, Col. Tavington is racing towards Benjamin Martin (flag in hand) on his horse. Martin then kneels and stabs Tavington's horse, sending the horse flying. Freeze frame here, you can clearly see that the horse is on a track; the mechanics are visible on the bottom right of the screen. (The filmming crew used a fake horse for this, as mentioned in the special effects featurette on the DVD version). [Per the rules of this site, if you have to pause or freeze-frame to see it, it's not a movie mistake.]
The official design of the flag was 13 alternate red and white stripes, with a blue canton containing 13 stars, but the Continental Congress never specified any design for the stars. One variation was the circle of stars seen in the film, but it is very unlikely that every flag would have used this design. Many flags at the time had varying numbers of stripes, plus a Union Jack in the canton. [Unlikely but not impossible, so it's not a mistake.]
As the Battle of Cowpens opens, we see British artillery firing on the Continentals. Normally, that would not be a mistake, except that the artillery shown is seige artillery used on forts and such. The British would probably have used smaller cannon against advancing troop columns. ["Probably" doesn't qualify as a mistake, unless you know for a fact they didn't use this type of artillery.]
When Charlotte gets the children out of bed to flee from the British, Susan is barefooted when Charlotte picks her up and they flee the house. The next morning, Susan has shoes. [This is not a mistake, we don't know what happened in the meantime, they'd have had several hours to get some shoes from somewhere else (e.g. form another family on their way to their refuge).]
After the ship explodes and the woman proclaims, "Oh, fireworks. Lovely," Tavington downs his drink and places his glass gently on a surface to his left, yet we hear the sound of glass breaking, as if he had slammed or thrown it down. In fact, if you look closely you can see he hasn't even finished putting it down when we hear the sound effect. [In my DVD version you can't see the glass anymore when you hear the sound. And if he throws the glass down powerful enough, there is no proof that the sound isn't corresponding with the impact of the glass.]
After Tavington is down by the creek shaving, he comes back up the hill and gets on his horse. He is supposed to be sticking something in his chest pocket, but you can clearly see it miss and fall to the ground. [That's his straight razor he loses. And people can actually do this in real life, especially with the stress of being under attack and unarmed.]
Corrected by Twotall
It's strange that all the "Redcoats" in the entire film have pronounced British accents. When you consider nearly 90% of the British force was made up of German mercenaries, it's odd that we never hear any speak in German or any with the slightest hint of a German accent. [While you are right that there were numerous German mercenaries fighting on the side of the British during the war, their numbers were nowhere near 90%. Rough estimates put it at around 25%, largely located in the Northern colonies which the British felt as "captured" and those not worth wasting British troops to guard. Also, Lord Cornwallis would never have fought with any troops other than British troops he had trained and knew their duty to his satisfaction.]
In the scene where Tavington is being told by Corwallis he may use "brutal" tactics, Tavington says he would not be able to return to England after committing such acts of violence. Cornwallis offers him the bribe of an enormous portion of American land. Tavington says "Tell me about Ohio." Ohio didn't not become an Amercan territory until after the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Ohio wasn't actually American land. [The Ohio River Valley was a British controlled territory at the time of the Revolution. Although many of the original colonial charters included parts of this area, the area was jointly claimed by France and Britain. It officially became part of the British Empire after the French & Indian War (Seven Years War in Europe). Tavington knew the colonies would eventually spread into this area and he wanted to control a big part of it when they did. To bad for him, the Americans won their independence, and in doing so the U.S. was given the Ohio River Valley as a concession in the Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolution in 1783. The Ohio River Valley was formally organized into several territories with the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.]
In the scene were Benjamin Martin is fighting Travington in the Battle of Cowspen, there is a shot of the overall battle and Martin starts to advance on Travington. Go to the scene before that, and in slow motion see Martin losing his pistol as it flies through the air. But because of film editing, he has it in the next shot. [Benjamin throws the gun away because he has already fired the shot. In the next scene you can see him running with a second gun tucked in his belt. That is the gun you see him holding in a later scene.]
During the Battle of Cowpens, the militia did fire two shots and was then allowed to withdraw, giving the British Army the impression that the Americans were fleeing. The Continental Army was also waiting for the British to fall into this trap. But the Continental Army was not waiting at the bottom of a hill as depicted in the movie. Only the troops landed by the British Navy at Gallipoli during World War I were foolish enough to dig in on the low ground. [At the Battle of Cowpens, the Continental Army did use a "reverse slope" ambush. A "reverse slope" ambush is where the main force waits on the back side of a hill at a point lower than the crest. The enemy is then lured to rapidly pursue fleeing forces over the crest of the hill. When the enemy reaches the top of the hill they are silohuetted against the skyline and are easy targets for the ambushing force. The volly delivered by the ambushing Continental Army was devestating to the British force, which combined with the surprise and confusion, allowed the Continental Army to win the Battle of Cowpens. (I've no idea what the Battle of Gallipolie has to do with this movie.).]
Throughout the movie when loading their pistols, the characters are always seen ramming the musket balls into their guns and then throwing the ramrod away. In reality soldiers were taught to always place the ramrod back in the gun after they were done ramming. It would be impossible to fire the gun again if they did not have a ramrod to ram the next musket ball in. [It is quite likely that the soldiers would have tossed their ram rods aside BRIEFLY, so that they could slightly shorten the reloading process (which is a good thing to do if you're required to stand up in the open in order to reload.) You'll see Civil War skirmishers (reenactors who engage paper targets with live ammunition) do it all the time, in order to maintain the muzzleloading musket's goal of 3 rounds per minute. Once they fired, they would have picked the ram rod up again to reload, then toss it aside again.]
Tavington supposedly knew where to find the Martin family by asking Wilkins who lived in the home he had burned down, yet that home was no longer occupied, and he would not have known to look for them at Charlotte's house. [First he asked him who lived in that home. Then he asked him where Martin would hide his children. Wilkins said he would lead Tavington to Charlotte's house.]
The flames from the torch that are burning the church are WAY up high on the building, far away from the door. A split second later, tons of smoke comes pouring into the church from under the door. [Yes, because another torch was thrown in front of the doors (we don't see it happen). You can see when they show the outside the church that there are flames (a torch) in front of the doors, presumably there to prevent anyone's escape if they managed to break through the chains on the doors.]
In church, Anne is wearing the necklace that Benjamin later gave her as a wedding gift when she and Gabriel got married. [The necklace Anne wears in church is one with a cross on it. The necklace she receives from Benjamin is one with a polestar.]
There are numerous references made to "Redcoats" in a sense of fear, as though they are the elite troops of the time, I think "We're talking about real redcoats here," even pops up as a line. Whilst this elitism may have been true, nearly 90% of the troops sent to America during the American Revolution were poorly-trained German mercenaries (from the German state of Saxe-Hess), not properly-trained British soldiers as it was too expensive to send the proper troops, and the American generals knew about this flaw. [Which is why the Colonials are so afraid of "real" Redcoats. They knew they were better than the regular German opponents.]
Corrected by Twotall
You may also like: The Patriot (1998) | The Dark Knight | Titanic | Star Wars | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
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