Factual error: When the bus slams into Brian's car at the start, Brian's car doesn't move an inch. Given the speed and weight of the bus, Brian's car should have been shunted a good distance. (00:01:45)
Factual error: It is not plausible that the tail rotor blade of the helicopter can destroy large parts of a building without being damaged. (01:24:40)
Factual error: Near the end of the movie, as the money train is approaching the passenger train, the motorman is communicating on the microphone with dispatch. If you notice, as he is talking, his hand is NOT on the throttle. On the trains in the NYC subway system if the throttle is not depressed the train will stop.
Factual error: When Bruno is on his way to Union Station, he's heading on a bridge away from the Lincoln Memorial, which means he's leaving Washington D.C. for Arlington, Virginia, or in other words, he's going the wrong way.
Factual error: In one scene, focused on a period wood-staked pickup truck parked on the street, you can see clearly a modern Jeep Grand Cherokee parked on the other side of the street.
Factual error: When the donor is wheeled in for surgery to harvest her organs there are no signs of life support, no tubes, no IV, not resporator. A donor must be kept "alive" by life support or the organs will die.
Factual error: When Bob Ford opens the box under the bed, on top is an issue of "The Jesse James Stories" weekly, which was published from 1901-1903 - fully twenty years after the events of this film. (00:36:10)
Factual error: When one of the men visits a doctor and learns he is terminal, the X-ray in the scene is upside down.
Factual error: In the scene when Kale uses the lamp, taking off its lamp-shade, to see what's inside the hole, he points it in there. The lamp, actually, shouldn't illuminate the wall in one point creating a circle like a flashlight but wholly lighten the larger area. (01:30:00)
Factual error: Towards the middle of the film,Pacino and Depp are walking downtown, there is alot of traffic and some of the cars are "post 1978" model . One in particular caught my eye, which was a mid-80's Ford Taurus (even the model of the car didn't exist in 1978).
Factual error: When Marylin Rexroth's ex-husband dies, she inherits his money because he had not removed her from his will after divorcing her. Under California Probate Code ยง 6122(a)(1), the dissolution of a marriage automatically revokes any disposition or appointment of property made by the will to the former spouse.
Factual error: Mahony gets Can$15,000 from the bank he works in in Canada and flies to Atlantic City (US) where the cashier gives him US$15,000 of chips. US and Canadian dollars are not equivalent and, at the end of 1981, the cashier should be giving him less than US$13,000. Since he is broke, he couldn't have made up the difference himself. (00:09:30 - 00:11:30)
Factual error: Right before Frank humiliates Dorothy for the first time, he blows out one of the gaslights in her apartment. That is never done in real life, for the same reason you would not blow out the pilot in your stove.
Factual error: Warren Beatty refers to the "Hoover Dam" being able to generate the power needed for Las Vegas and his Flamingo casino. The problem is that he supposedly made the comment in 1937. At that time, the "Hoover Dam" was still called "Boulder Dam." It wasn't renamed to honour President Herbert Hoover until about ten years later.
Factual error: In the scene where Riggs drops the container, there were only two buttons on the control. I've never seen a hoist with a drop button, just an up and down and they are pretty slow. (01:39:25)
Factual error: Throughout the movie, you see Carlito using a Beretta 92F semi-automatic pistol. The movie is set in 1975, that model pistol wasn't introduced until the mid 80s.
Factual error: Why is there a stellar observatory in the middle of a very large city, most of the stars would be drowned out by the city lights to the point of the observatory being useless. Also, the dome is very high up on top of a "building". Such buildings need to flex a little bit in the wind to keep them from breaking, this would make it impossible for the telescope to focus on anything for a timed exposure of film to make those neat pictures of galaxies and such. (00:35:20)
Factual error: In the shot where the laser sights of the assailants come in through the windows and holes in the wall, their angles are far too different from each other. The shooters are standing at a rather great distance from the structure and at more or less the same height. All the laser sights should have more or less the same direction and certainly not make a sweeping motion inside the room. (00:37:30)
Factual error: When the evangelist first enters the mansion, Mrs. Peacock calls him a beatnik. However, the movie is set in 1954, and the word "beatnik" was not coined until 1958. (01:15:25)
Factual error: The movie leaves the impression that Huntsville, Texas and Austin, Texas are just a short distance apart. In reality, they are at least three hours apart.