swordfish

Conned Out of Luck - S6-E5

Character mistake: When Mickey and Emma are trying to get access to the university labs, they claim they are working for Ofsted, and are investigating exam manipulation allegations. In fact, Ofsted have never been responsible for supervising/investigating universities - they only cover places of education up to the age of 18. Completely different organisations supervise universities.

swordfish

Continuity mistake: The scene where Bond leaves the voodoo shop to tail the car. He hails a cab. As the cab draws up, we briefly see the cabbie in the front, who does not have long sideburns/mutton chops. However, shortly afterwards when the cabbie starts talking to Bond, and we see him more, it is a different actor (Arnold Williams), who has noticeably long sideburns. The driver has changed.

swordfish

Cops and Robbers - S1-E4

Deliberate mistake: When Sam first meets Mickey (who is posing as a bank robber), Mickey says he needs Sam to state that he needs Mickey's help in robbing a bank, so if Sam turns out to be an undercover cop, Mickey can plead entrapment. This is a classic error. Entrapment only exists where a cop actively persuades a criminal to do something he otherwise wouldn't have done - which is not the case here. If Mickey as a con artist knows this (which is likely), it's a deliberate mistake, otherwise it's a factual error. (00:30:09)

swordfish

Continuity mistake: The escape scene from Gonzalez's villa. Bond uses a sun umbrella as a parachute. The camera shows Bond jumping, under the opened umbrella. At that point, the umbrella canopy doesn't have any bullet holes in it. Bond reaches the ground, lets go of the umbrella and runs. The camera cuts to the guard on the ledge above about to fire at the umbrella. He hasn't yet fired any bullets, but in the next shot there are suddenly already bullet holes in the canopy before the guard actually begins firing.

swordfish

Question: How does Cassandra manage to find Brett's home address and track him down there? There's no suggestion he gives her any other information than his mobile number, which isn't enough to find an address.

swordfish

Other mistake: Given that Cassandra's parents are so incredibly rich, spoil her rotten, buy her anything, and have even got her a luxury apartment, why on earth is she flying to the USA in economy class?

swordfish

New Recruits - S5-E2

Other mistake: When Mickey first opens the newspaper to show the article on Fielding and Wood, in fact the article just repeats the same first three paragraphs of text again and again. (00:01:51)

swordfish

The Last Gamble - S1-E6

Character mistake: The amount of money the team allegedly scammed the first mark for keeps changing throughout. In the first scene, it appears to be £25K (the mark gives them this as a bribe). However, in the next scene when the team divide the money up, it is stated to be £105K. However then, in the penultimate scene, when the mark thinks Mickey has given him "60-70K" (Ash's words) from their new horse racing con, he states that he has made a 50 grand profit: thus suggesting again he was scammed out of 25k.

swordfish

The Last Gamble - S1-E6

Continuity mistake: The scene where Danny is lying on the sofa in the flat listening to music. Stacey throws down an envelope of money onto his chest. The banknotes spill considerably out of the envelope in the first shot. Two shots later and without either Danny or Stacey having touched the money, the banknotes are mysteriously tucked back inside the envelope.

swordfish

Show generally

Plot hole: The team constantly has fake stories about them on news sites, so that when posing as businessmen/investors etc, the mark can look them up on the internet and find out more about them. Obviously, they have a few fake news sites of their own. The problem is persuading the mark that this is genuine. Many of their marks are bankers and businessmen, who would look for reports on legitimate financial/newspaper sites, rather than some random news site they had never heard of before.

swordfish

Politics - S5-E5

Plot hole: When Albert, Mickey and Emma are trying to decide which nationality of millionaire Albert will pose as, they decide not to go with an English millionaire, since Albert at this point tries and fails to do a remotely convincing upper-class English accent. However, in many earlier episodes (such as "Gold Mine") he has no problems at all in putting on a convincing upper-class English accent.

swordfish

Whittaker Our Way Out - S3-E3

Factual error: In the flashback scene to Whittaker senior's trial at the Old Bailey (which takes place in the late 19th or early 20th century), the judge in the trial is wearing a long, full-bottomed wig. This is completely incorrect - since the late 18th century, full-bottomed wigs have only been worn by judges on ceremonial occasions, not in court. At trials, judges wear short wigs instead. (00:05:17)

swordfish

Episode #4.1 - S4-E1

Character mistake: Ruth tells the Oxford professor that she read "Classics" at Oxford. That's a major mistake - Oxford doesn't offer "classics" as a course: it is called "Greats" (or "Lit Hum"), and is referred to as such by the students reading it. It might be one thing for an Oxford alumnus to call it "Classics" when speaking to someone not at Oxford, but they would never say it to a member of the Oxford faculty.

swordfish

Factual error: Jodie Foster states that as a propulsion engineer, she knows the internal structure of the plane by heart and has worked extensively on it. The problem with that is that propulsion engineers work on the jet engines - which are all on the outside of the plane, on the wings. Sure, a propulsion engineer might have some basic knowledge of the plane's interior design and engineering, but the in-depth knowledge she claims comes from her job simply isn't right - that's the job of avionics engineers.

swordfish

Plot hole: Gene's plot has far too many holes for it to have had any chance of working in real life. He somehow must get himself assigned to that particular flight (OK, maybe as a flight marshal he could persuade his superiors to assign him to it) - but also hope that the air stewardess Stephanie is also assigned to that flight - something he has no control over. He then needs to push Jodie Foster's husband off a building, hope the corpse is taken to the only morgue in the city with a crooked morgue director, hope the coffin is assigned to the flight he is on. On top of that, he needs to get explosives into a coffin, the combination of which he actually says he doesn't know. He also needs to hope no-one notices the child, the child doesn't make a noise while boarding, there are lots of spare seats on this inaugural flight, and that mother and daughter move to them.

swordfish

The Veiled Lady - S2-E2

Plot hole: When Poirot and Hastings break into the house, they search the entire house for the box, without success. However, later on, when they are in the kitchen, the housekeeper comes down the stairs - having been lying in wait for them. How did Poirot not run into her when he was initially searching upstairs, particularly when he was making such a thorough search?

swordfish

A Hit is a Hit - S1-E10

Continuity mistake: The scene where Hesh and Massive Genius are sitting down and drinking. Massive Genius has just requested that Hesh pay reparations money. Paulie then steps forwards, aggressively demanding "or what?" Behind him, Chris is standing by the white pillar. However, two shots and 2 seconds later, when the camera cuts back to Tony's holding Paulie back, Chris has completely disappeared from the veranda - he is neither behind Paulie or Silvio.

swordfish

Factual error: The Saint picks up a newspaper, and reads an article that is, according to the headline, about the murder of the Englishman he met the previous night. However, if you actually translate the Italian in the body of the article, it is talking about an industrial fire on a ship.

swordfish

Character mistake: At the beginning of the film, Matt arrives at Paddington station in West London. He needs to meet his sister who lives in Chelsea - also in West London. However, for some bizarre reason he gets to her via meeting at Bank station - in east London. It makes no sense why he would make such a convoluted journey. Even if as a tourist he simply doesn't know London well enough to make a more efficient journey, his sister - who lives there - would correct him when arranging a meeting point.

swordfish

Continuity mistake: The scene where Carver is writing the newspaper headline, he changes it from "British sailors killed" to "British sailors murdered." The camera then cuts to a close up of his face, and reflected in his glasses we see the other page (with the headline in different languages). The top text box changes so it has two rows of text. However, when the camera cuts back as Stamper calls in, there is mysteriously only one line of text again.

swordfish