Factual error: How is it that when Sly comes out of the freezing, icy water, his hair and clothes are bone dry? I don't know too much about hypothermia, but I would imagine that his fairly thin sweater isn't wind proof. I'm sure by the time the movie ended, he would be suffering from more symptoms of hypothermia other than chattering teeth.
Factual error: When Jean-Claude is chased by the helicopter in the woods alongside the river, the man in the helicopter fires a MP5 machinegun, but it causes huge explosions, this is impossible, it's not a grenade launcher!
Factual error: When Cruz is schooling Jaunito about "Quetzalcoatl" in the background the song "Low Rider" is playing. The timeline states it's 1972, but the song wasn't released until 1975. (00:08:10)
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: During the car chase at the beginning, they are chasing a car on Bigelow Blvd., less than a mile from downtown Pittsburgh and we see a big, brick hill they chase down. This hill is actually in Duquesne, PA more than ten miles south east of Pittsburgh. Then as you're watching they are still in the same area as Bigelow Blvd., in the Polish Hill section of Pittsburgh.
Factual error: During one scene, Michael Williams is seen putting gasoline in a jeep at an ARCO station. There are no ARCO stations in the state of Wyoming.
Factual error: In the early scene where Dennis Nedry meets a man to plan the embryo theft, the subtitle says that they are in San José, Costa Rica. However, the sleepy coastal town in the movie within sight of the ocean bears no resemblance to the real San José (a cosmopolitan capital of almost 1 million people, situated 50 miles from either coast). Even the book makes this error. (00:13:10 - 00:14:45)
Factual error: American law schools graduate students in mid-May. Tom Cruise and his wife drive from Boston, Mass. to Memphis, Tenn. to take the new job pending the bar exam, which is given in late July. So why during that late Spring/early Summer are autumn leaves falling?
Factual error: Most of the time the boys have no visible breaths, even though they're in a freezing climate.
Factual error: When Nina was given the assignment in the restaurant in the guise of a dinner outing,she was handed a a box with a pistol in it. That pistol was an Olympic-grade target pistol used in international competition. That type of firearms does NOT hold 8 rounds,and she fired 8 rounds before re-loading.
Factual error: When Robocop first flies into the the battle at the end of the movie, the whine from his jetpack causes the glass in some windows to blow outwards. Considering the sound waves are hitting the glass from the outside of the windows, they should be blown inwards not outwards.
Factual error: When Frank talks to Booth the first time on the phone and realizes he's at the phone outside, he runs to find him, only to find the handset swinging and the phone emitting the periodic screech that is heard after 1 minute of leaving a phone off hook. Seeing as how the apartment is three stories max, there's no way that sound would be playing by time he got there even if Booth somehow hung up first. Furthermore, even if it did take that long, the handset wouldn't still be swinging. (00:14:45)
Factual error: The DA says that Madonna is a suspect because the dead millionaire left her a huge amount of money in his will. He calls this 'Probable Cause'. For a DA and supposed expert at law, he should know that this would be a 'Motive' to murder the guy, not 'Probable Cause'.
Factual error: When the robbers are breaking through the vault door, they look to be using an oxygen lance which in reality would cause that entire room to be filled with smoke and fumes in seconds.
Factual error: Andy is interrogated by the detective after the latest rape, as evidence in this one points to him. Problem is, the cop mentions that all the victims had visited Andy's office before their attacks. In real life, with information like that, he would have been a suspect and subject to questioning from the very first incident.
Factual error: One character refers to the mobile command post in the Airstream trailer as "high-tech", a phrase that wasn't around in 1963; "space-age" would have been more correct for the period.
Factual error: During the car chase that leads to the tunnel, there are several freeway signs pointing to Murphy, North Carolina, and the film is set in Chicago.
Factual error: When the President is in the hospital getting his physical, after the first female naval officer (Lt.) leaves, the President salutes the the second female officer, a Commander, and she then salutes back. There are two things wrong with this. 1) The junior grade officer ALWAYS salutes the senior officer first and the President, as Commander in Chief, is the highest military officer. He would never salute first. 2) The salute the Commander gives is absurd. It is some strange windmill wave over her head thing. No naval officer would EVER salute so sloppy or bizarre and especially not to the President of the United States. (00:31:15)
Factual error: The beginning of the movie takes place in Las Vegas, but during a tracking shot of the main villain, Bracus, leaving his helicopter, the Los Angeles skyline is visible from the helipad at the top of the building. (00:03:55)
Factual error: The final scene shows the sun setting over the ocean. They settle in Cancun, Mexico. Cancun is on the east coast. The sun sets in the west.
Suggested correction: We know that they wanted to settle in Cancun, but that doesn't mean that Cancun is where they ended up.