Continuity mistake: Jeff Daniels' character gets shot in the thigh by his partner. Later, when he gets his award, it is the opposite leg that has a cast on it.
Continuity mistake: When Howard Payne is in the elevator, he hears Jack and Harry doing something from above, and he reaches for his bomb trigger. In slow motion when he's picking it up, it has two buttons on it, yet when Howard pushes one of the buttons, the device now has three. (00:13:00)
Suggested correction: Look closely. There are 6 buttons in all shots (3 rows of 2 (1 red, 1 green)) However the bottom row has tape over it in the close up of Payne picking it up.
Continuity mistake: When Jack is chasing the bus on the freeway in the Jaguar, an overhead shot is shown of the bus with three cars around it, but in the next shot of the traffic, the road is full of traffic which is surrounding the bus, which is highlighted by Jack having to swerve around the cars.
Continuity mistake: When Dennis Hopper's shooting the shotgun through the lift roof, the number of holes doesn't match the number of blasts. He shoots once and a hole appears. We then see a close up of him and he shoots twice more, but when we cut to the ceiling after the third shot overall, there are only two holes in it. Doesn't seem likely he'd miss the roof at a range of 2 feet. (00:18:55)
Continuity mistake: Near the end of the film when Keanu Reeves and Dennis Hopper are wrestling on top of the subway, if you watch Keanu's left wrist you notice he is wearing a watch. Yet throughout the scene it is obvious that the stunt double has no watch, because in the extreme action scenes, there are no signs of it anywhere on his wrist.
Factual error: Harry is a LAPD SWAT team member. SWAT trains and trains and trains, then exercises and trains some more. Harry would not be investigating the case as shown when he asked to see the files for the last 10 years. If he was on desk duty for his injury, yes, he could be working the investigation. But soon after, he was on the entry team at Payne's house. That would have required more prep work by the SWAT team that Harry would have had to be doing instead of looking through the files.
Factual error: In the bus freeway gap jump, a second after driving off the freeway edge, the bus has fallen beneath that edge level of the freeway. It would be impossible for it to have regained altitude to be above the freeway on the other side. It would have hit at best halfway between the wheels of the bus, if at all.
Factual error: As long as gravity is a constant, there is no physical way that the bus (traveling at 68 mph) could possibly jump the level, 50-foot horizontal gap in the freeway. Even at triple or quadruple that speed, the bus would invariably drop vertically by as much as a meter, with catastrophic results.
Continuity mistake: On the subway train where Payne opens the money bag, a dye pack goes off and leaves a purple stain on the dead man's handle. But moments later in the shot where Payne stops firing his machine gun at the ceiling, the stain has vanished. (01:42:35)
Revealing mistake: Before Jack rips the door off the Jaguar, he speeds ahead of the bus and then opens the driver's door at highway speed. At 50 MPH there would be a lot of air resistance, yet Jack opens the door effortlessly.
Other mistake: As Traven is about to slide under the bus on the small trolley, you can see his feet are only just going to get under the bus. Cut to a camera shot from the side, and now the front of the bus is significantly higher.
Continuity mistake: When Jack handcuffs Ray to the metal handrail, Ray's right wrist has the double bars facing up and single bar facing down, but when Jack tells the passengers about the gap and then uncuffs Ray before the jump, the handcuff's single bar is facing up on his right wrist.
Revealing mistake: The Jaguar owner holds up the piece of paper with "bomb on bus" written on it, then he loses his grip on it, and when the paper lands directly on the bus windshield, the stunt wires are visible at its sides. (00:37:35)
Continuity mistake: The 2 SWAT team members are not visible on the preceding truck between two shots. (01:12:55 - 01:13:32)
Continuity mistake: Right after the bus jumps the gap, Jack hugs Ortiz. Immediately following you can see the reflection of the stairwell at the front in the mirror. The stairwell and door are both fine, after having been blown off when Helen died. (01:07:00)
Visible crew/equipment: As the end credits are starting, tracks used for a camera dolly can be seen along the left side next to the buildings. (01:50:55)
Continuity mistake: When Jack starts wiggling the train's pole, his hands switch places between shots. (01:46:05)
Visible crew/equipment: A camera crane is visible in the bus's rear window reflection just as it enters the empty 105 freeway via police escort. (00:53:35)
Visible crew/equipment: When Harry's colleague hands him a printout of Howard Payne's newspaper article, a boom mic reflection is visible on the window right above the bomb schematic diagram. (01:15:15)
