Factual error: At the end of the film Rainwood has established his innocence of the drug charges and is happily back at work as a senior mechanic for a large airline. However, part of the sentencing and plea bargain protocols at his arraignment is his previous conviction on a lesser drug charge years before. It goes without saying that he did not advise his employers of this when he started work for them - no airline in the world (even pre 9/11) would hire someone with a drug conviction on their record! Now this is out in the open the airline knows that Rainwood is a convicted drug user (on the lesser, legitimate charge) and that he lied on his original job application. They wouldn't hire him again to sweep the floors.
Audio problem: In the scene where Leo explains how he launders the drug money and Roger says "You're a cheat", Leo says "Come on, everyone cheats a little, look at the pentagon." But when he says "look at the pentagon", it's dubbed in because the sound of his voice doesn't match his other dialogue, and if you read his lips it doesn't match either.
Continuity mistake: When the Joker's henchmen are trashing the museum, one guy puts red handprints all over a portrait, later the Joker walks by the same portrait and the handprints are gone. (00:59:55)
Revealing mistake: When Hightower is in the Monster Truck you can see that a white stuntman is actually driving it in one of the shots.
Continuity mistake: In Ellen Barkin's apartment, Al Pacino accidently knocks a postcard off of the fridge. A few seconds later, it's back where it was, though nobody picked it up.
Factual error: When the air hose on the truck is severed, the brakes release. In reality, on an air-braking system, if the air hose is severed, the brakes lock on as a safety measure.
Other mistake: Sergeant Johnny Gallagher (Gene Hackman) and Lieutenant Milon Delich (Dennis Franz) are in a supposedly deserted building searching for a group of conspirators who plan to assassinate both the USA and USSR presidents. Delich finds a police colleague of his in the building, and Delich kills his colleague. When he fires his revolver, the sound of the blanks can be heard, slightly out of synch with the gun blasts on the sound track.
Factual error: After the first victim they claim to have found a shell with 'Megan Turner' on it. That's not possible as we see Ron Silver fire at the victim and immediatley run away. If it had been an automatic then the gun would eject the shell, but it's a revolver, which doesn't eject shells.
Other mistake: When Stallone stops the bad guys in the semi full of cocaine, they fly through a windshield that is apparently made of plate glass, and not the safety glass found on almost every other vehicle windshield on earth.
Continuity mistake: When Beck meets Webly on Christmas Day, Webly takes his glasses off and throws them on the desk, but in the next shot (from behind) he is still wearing them. (00:16:50)
Factual error: Hooch is a french mastiff. The dog he gets pregnant is a collie. Different breed dogs do not make purebred puppies. Hooch's pups would be part collie, part mastiff. In the end of the movie, one pup is pure mastiff like hooch and 4 are pure collies like their mother.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Belushi and Jerry Lee (the dog) enter the warehouse, Belushi askes everyone to stop what they are doing and even has the forklift driver lift him up so he can talk to them. Once he is done talking, he tells the lift driver to bring him down. The next few shots where they show Belushi walking to his car, if you look closely, you will see that the fork lift is back up in the air, but there were no sounds and there isn't another lift to be found. (00:25:05)
Continuity mistake: When Eddie tells Homer about the Wady robbery while they're driving along, there's a change from broad daylight to late dusk in mid-sentence. (00:33:05)
Continuity mistake: Towards the end of the movie Dave takes Walley's jacket and uses it to help them slide down a cable. Before they slid down, Dave tells Walley to hold on, and Walley asks if they're going to be above the ground. Dave tells him no, and off they go. However, Dave is deaf, and reads lips, and Walley is standing behind him when he asks the question. So how did Dave read his lips if he wasn't looking at him?
Continuity mistake: In the scene where they are discussing why Dalton fired Mr Wesley's nephew (upstairs in the Double Deuce). Mr Wesley's nephew threatens Dalton with a knife and when Dalton takes a swing at him, there is blood on Mr Wesley's nephew's face way before contact. (00:34:05 - 00:38:00)
Factual error: The motel's billboard advertised HBO, which did not exist in 1971 when the movie was set.
Factual error: After the scene where Frank Castle steals the bus to rescue the children, the mobsters are firing at the bus. Not one bullet pierces a hole in the bus. Who knew Public Transit was bullet proof?
Factual error: While Fletch is riding with the bikers, they stop at a stop sign where a family in a station wagon roll up their windows in fear. A sign at a service center in the background is the Castaic Junction, which is in the greater Los Angeles area. The movie is supposed to be taking place in Louisiana. (01:12:35)
Continuity mistake: During a car chase, the "killer" is rushing a little girl to the hospital. As they pass the sign, it reads (in English) "Scared Heart Hospital" - instead of "Sacred".
Continuity mistake: In one scene we are looking at a shopping complex known as Greenspring Station which Nina is being chased through. Somehow she winds up being chased through a K-Mart. Anyone familiar with the Baltimore area, where the movie was shot, knows for a fact that there is not a K-Mart anywhere near that ritzy section of town.
Suggested correction: Even today in 2023 felony convictions might not show up on a background check. Not all information has been uploaded to the internet yet. It was extremely easy in the 1980's for a conviction to be missed by a background check especially if there was no prison time served or it occurred in a rural county or town.
He just got out of prison and establishing his innocence involved the violent deaths of at least two people. Do you not think that his employers just might have followed his story? He'd be all over the news media. The idea that not one person would have followed up on his criminal history is beyond absurd - we are talking about a safety critical job that involves the safety of hundreds of people.