Factual error: This movie is supposed to be set in the 80's as it says in the beginning of the movie, however, during many shots where the street is visible from the news broadcast center or the scene with John Travolta in the street, there are many cars which were not around. One of these cars, for example is a 2000 Dodge Intrepid.
Factual error: When Claire pulls herself out of the bathtub, she falls right over the center of the tub. The bloody fingerprints would have been wiped away or completely smeared by her nightgown and bathrobe during the fall.
Factual error: When the husband swims to the other side of the lake to get some stuff in the truck, he lights his cigarette on one side and when he arrives on the other side, it's still lit. How could he swim trough the lake without getting his smoke wet?
Factual error: In the scene where Shaft has chased the guy running from the drug bust and caught him in the hall with an empty gun you can plainly see the slide is locked back on the bad guy's pistol (indicating an empty magazine). When Shaft steps out to arrest him (before the bad guy jumps out of the window into the other building) you can clearly hear the 2 clicks of a firearm hammer falling on an empty chamber. With the slide locked back, the hammer is locked back also...it would never make any clicks.
Factual error: When the girl with no kidney is decapitated, there's not nearly enough glass left in the window to take her head clean off while leaving it in the fixture.
Factual error: The sight of Andrea's body after she died of a heroin overdose should have been much more graphic. She wasn't foaming at the mouth, there were no needle tracks on her arm, and the cut she made on her leg a few days prior to her death is no longer there.
Factual error: When David Morse speaks on the mobile phone in the helicopter and just before kidnapping, he speaks to the wrong side of the phone. In the Nokia Communicator, the speaker and microphone are on the same side as the battery, not on the display side!
Factual error: KCN does not causes you to internally bleed, so Yuka Nakagawa wouldn't have spat up blood and died like that in the lighthouse, but would have rather died due to cessation of respiration.
Factual error: In the film we can see the jacket that Marilyn Monroe was wearing the day she married Joe DiMaggio, only the colour is wrong. We are shown a dark black jacket, though it actually was a brown one. (00:18:25)
Factual error: The Ohio Supreme Court does not meet in the State House, as portrayed in the movie. (00:07:40)
Factual error: When the group is travelling through the canyon near the end of the film, they are burning liquor to light the way, yet there is a lot more light than would be given off from this small flame. And none of it is flickering as would happen with a naked flame.
Factual error: At the end when the cops come after the fights. Ice Cube seems to be able to 1. tell the cops who to arrest even though the cops just arrived. And 2. Walk right out the front door of a house being raided by several cops with a the cash cylinder and no-one even seems to care. In reality everyone would have been arrested in handcuffs, questioned at the scene, and only released when or if it was determined they were not doing anything illegal.
Factual error: The actress Sasha Barrese is credited at the beginning of the movie as "Sasha Berrese".
Factual error: The envelope sent to Austin, Texas has the ZIP code 50321. This is a zip code for Des Moines, Iowa. All Austin ZIP codes start in 78.
Factual error: Whenever the group get their passports, they seem to get it on the actual day they apply for it - much much faster than normal.
Factual error: In the scene when Zhen is writing down the characters of Shu Lian's name, she writes the modern form of the "Lian". That form wasn't introduced into the language until after World War II, and this movie is set well before the fall of Imperial China.
Factual error: Nonna knew the Australia (ie, Josie's real grandfather) in 1945 - the photograph is dated. Josie's mother was born from this union, and had Josie when she was 17. During the film, Josie herself is seventeen. About thirty-five years would have passed, then, making the present about 1980 or so. But it's quite clear (from the fashions, technology, streetscapes, dialogue, references, music, cars, etc, etc) that it's around 2000 or so, twenty years too late.
Factual error: At the Mexican brothel, in the scene where the ambulance comes to pick up Juliette Lewis, there is a sign that has "Calexico" written on it. But Calexico is a small town on the American side of the U.S/Mexico borders.
Factual error: When Bateman is in his apartment with his secretary, he points a large tool at the back of her head, unbeknownst to her. That is an air powered nailgun for installing plywood. The only way that one could be used is with an airhose and a compressor. The fitting for the airhose that sticks out of the bottom has been removed because it usually would point straight down and stick out about 2 inches. (01:02:45)
Factual error: Alex's 6-year-old kid must be a very powerful little boy: when he grabs that model aeroplane glue tube it bursts in the air like water.