Factual error: When Rob catches the Colombian guy with the drugs, the police officer tastes the drugs. In real life, a police officer would never taste drugs, because it could be something else, such as cyanide.
Factual error: The captain's rank insignia ("train tracks") sewn onto the right collar tip of the battle dress uniform of Gandolfini's aide is sewn on incorrectly. The train tracks should be angled on a diagonal where the upper part is oriented toward the neck and lower part toward the tip of the collar. The aide's rank is angled on a diagonal in the opposite direction. This is not a minor mistake - any vet would notice this at a glance.
Factual error: In every scene where knights collide on the lyst, you see their lances in one hand and the reins to their horse in the other. When knights jousted, they would drop their reins before impact so that a severe impact would not cause them to jerk the reins or become entangled in them causing more damage to themselves or the horse.
Factual error: As Shrek is sitting near the sunflowers field and staring at the Duloc (and day becomes night), we don't see the cathedral anywhere. It should be visible as such a big building, due to how big it is seen later, it should be very distinct over the houses' roofs.
Factual error: Jesse James' mother in real life outlived him by several years following his murder.
Factual error: Two problems with the end of the movie - first, a doctor must declare death officially before bodies can be bagged, and second, the bodies cannot be moved until a full investigation is performed.
Factual error: When Gandolfini has the shoot-out with the black assassin, it just doesn't make any sense that the cops who are nearby investigating the "suicide" of Gandolfini's boyfriend don't hear the gunshots and get involved. If the guns had silencers, the whole scene would be more sensible. Come to think of it, the sound-effects used in the shootings sound much like silenced shots but it shows that both weapons are unsilenced.
Factual error: On his arrival at Longmarsh Prison, Danny Meehan is told that the establishment is a 'Cat B' prison. However, earlier in the plot, we learn that Danny Meehan is to be sent to a 'high security' prison. Cat B prisons are not high security prisons. They are known as 'local' or 'training' prisons. 'Dispersal' or 'Cat A' prisons form part of the high security estate.
Factual error: In the scene where Waternoose and Sully are talking, Waternoose gets himself some "coffee", which is sludgy and thick and takes quite a while to pour from the machine. Seconds later, he takes a very quick sip. Since the liquid was so thick and there was little in the cup, it would be impossible for it to pour that fast.
Factual error: In the fight scene in Lara's garage, she rides her motorbike towards the guy attacking her, does a front wheelie and knocks him out with the rear wheel by braking and turning the bike on its front wheel. The back end of the bike then gently lowers itself to the ground, rather than dropping heavily under the force of gravity.
Factual error: When Stephanie gets in the back of the zoo wagon, she discovers a zebra back there. Then all of a sudden the zebra toots and the flames go way out of the back of the trailer. In real life that wouldn't happen because the gas doesn't come out of your rear end fast enough to have that happen.
Factual error: The German mine expert is working with his face shield open while he is trying to defuse the mine placed under Cera. (01:15:45)
Factual error: It's established that the kids live in and go to school on the South Side (south of the Loop), and much is made of the fact that Malakai has nothing but his "respect" within his neighbourhood. At the movie's end, where Malakai wants Derek to accompany him on the robbery/murder, he tells Derek, "Meet me at 47th street, under the El." Yet when Derek runs off and jumps on the train to go meet Sara, we see him getting on a Brown Line train - those trains can only be found on the North side, miles and miles away from 47th street. In addition, his train is shown heading SOUTH toward the Loop, which means in order to be going that direction on that train he'd have rode on the train for about an hour, past the Loop entirely, then gotten off and turned back around toward the Loop again.
Factual error: When Harry takes the drunken Mickie out of the club the doormen manhandle Mickie in a way a doorman would never treat a member of the club. (00:21:00)
Factual error: In the scene when Clooney and Damon are rappelling down the shaft on steel cables, the come up short of the floor. They pull knives and swipe the cables. No knife would be able to cut a steel cable with one swipe.
Suggested correction: The cable is actually small enough gauge to be severed by a sharp knife when under the amount of tension created by the (static) suspended loads, i.e. Linus and Danny, although if so, it probably should have broken when their dynamic descent was halted so abruptly.
Cables would be left swinging, therefore setting off the alarm sensors.
They were retracted after they were cut. There's enough time for that to happen.
Factual error: One scene shows Muslims in prayer. There, the Muslims go from standing to getting on their knees. The problem with this is while in prayer, Muslims never go directly from standing to being on their knees. First, they would go bend over into a bow with their back perpendicular to their legs, then they would stand again, then go into prostration (on their knees while placing their forehead and nose on the ground) then they would go to to sitting up right on their knees.
Factual error: Ed Crane is executed by electrocution at the end of the film. However, in 1949, when the film is set, the gas chamber was used as the sole method of execution. According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, California has never used the electric chair as a means of capital punishment.
Factual error: Ruthie gets impaled on a jagged shard of glass from a modern shower door, but shower doors are made of safety glass (since 1977) - when they break they don't leave sharp knife-like shards, only tiny pieces.
Factual error: At the end of the movie when David jumps into to the water in downtown Manhattan, he lands in Coney Island. Coney Island is in Brooklyn, a long way from Manhattan.
Factual error: During the final shoot-out, when Raf shot the man on the roof as he enters town, the wrong flag is displayed - a 48 star flag, but the time setting is the 1880's, when there were fewer states.