Factual error: In the scene where there is a train passing, the cars are marked "Burlington Northern." There was NO Burlington Northern until 1970, 7 years AFTER the shooting.
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 Trey's father shoots at the burglar the gun punches baseball sized holes in the door. A .357 Magnum bullet going through a thin wooden door would just punch through, without expanding or tumbling, and leave a hole only a bit larger than the bullet diameter.
Factual error: Many of the vehicles in the movie have Pennsylvania inspection stickers on the lower driver's side windshield. This is not surprising being that most of the movie was filmed in Pennsylvania. However, they should have been removed when the car is suppose to be from another state. For example, the Senator's daughter, just before her abduction in Tennessee, is seen driving a car with Pennsylvania inspection stickers. Also, the driver for Yourself Storage in Baltimore also has Pennsylvania stickers on his car.
Factual error: In the scene where Earl is fighting the other prisoner, he is using a "sword" made from a bar of metal, it has a blade that is well over 2 feet long from the tip to the hilt. At the end of the fight the other prisoner is standing with his back against a solid concrete pillar, but Blake somehow manages to shove the "sword" through him all the way up to the hilt. This wouldn't be possible unless Blake were somehow able to shove the bar into the concrete.
Factual error: Pierrepoint is depicted as having a London accent. In real life, however, he was from the north of England, and had a Yorkshire accent, which sounds completely different. This is proved in a BBC interview with him, dating from the 1970s.
Factual error: After JD steals Louise's money, Thelma decides to rectify the fact that they're broke by robbing a convenience store in Oklahoma. She holds the clerk at gunpoint, asks for all the cash, and then requests he hand over a bottle of booze. The problem is, due to the liquor laws in Oklahoma, one can only buy 3.2 beer and wine coolers at grocery stores and convenience stores, not "hard" alcohol.
Factual error: In the second skydiving scene Patrick Swayze tells the pilot to fly the plane at 4000 feet, which he does as this can been seen on an altimeter. When skydiving from 4000 feet it would take 25 seconds before you hit the ground but the skydive in this scene lasts 1 minute 51 seconds.
Factual error: Take a look at the directory listing on Chris' computer. It is absolutely absurd. The game Battlechess, for instance, is shown having the filename BATTLECH.ESS . No popular program uses an .ESS extension. It should be BATTLE.EXE . Besides, Battlechess takes a whole CD by itself. It would not be on a single floppy with a bunch of unrelated files. (00:32:40)
Factual error: 'Cape Fear' is based in North Carolina, and cars shown in the film have North Carolina license plates. However, the cars have plates on both the front and back, and in North Carolina, cars only have plates on the back.
Factual error: The movie takes place in Washington D.C, however near the end on the roof, a warehouse in the background says "Van Nuys", which is in California.
Factual error: In the Steve Martin segment, the bus hijacker makes a sharp left, which would throw the passengers to their right, but the film shows them being thrown to their left. (00:25:35)
Factual error: I drove a tow truck for almost 20 years, and there was never a lever under the dash that would permit the driver to drop the towed vehicle.
Factual error: While the 1960s-70s era Hong Kong vehicle licence plates were period-correct as far as number sequence (no letter prefix) and having white plates front and back, the type of plastic, retro-reflecting plates shown are from the modern era (post-1983). Cars in HK from that period had non-retro-reflecting plates, with either numbers painted on with stencils, or individually mounted plastic letters.
Factual error: Towards the end of the movie Ritchie visits Chas the Chair. Chas tells one of his guys to wire a police scanner in the GNX parked in the garage. As we see the car once Richie's in it, it's very easily noticeable that it's not a Buick GNX, it's the regular Buick Grand National. The badges are on the fenders where the fender louvers should be on a GNX, the hood has the 3.8 SFI Turbo, among other differences. Trust me, I've owned one and have driven many.