Bird on a Wire

Bird on a Wire (1990)

34 mistakes since 19 Sep '19, 00:00

(2 votes)

Other mistake: The list of the previous jobs and aliases of Rick displayed on the computer bears an inconsistency, as "Gordon Connover" from Atlantic City is an identity listed as being over in December 15 1979, but "Harding Bennett" begins on October 16th of the same year in Cleveland. (00:12:50)

Sammo

Plot hole: During the final fight, electricity plays a strange, inconsistent role. Leaving aside the cheesiness of the blue sparks effect, it's quite odd that when said sparks signifying electricity travel up the cable, they do it just up to a certain height at first, but all the way up when it's time to kill the villain - in fact they should have travelled all the way to begin with. Not to mention the fact that Gibson has been touching the metal pretty much all the time and not just when he bodyhooks himself to it with the villain. (01:43:20)

Sammo

Factual error: The 'zoo' where the final climax of the movie takes place is built in perfect movie logic; it is full of deadly hazards (unmarked, small innocuous looking pond filled with piranhas, suspension bridge that collapses when a 100 pound woman steps on it, etc) arranged in ways that either normal visitors would not be able to even notice (making them pointless in context) or that would cause horrible accidents.

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Revealing mistake: In the struggle Goldie Hawn has with a bunch of chimpanzees, a single chimp is able to stir the rope an awful lot, with the rope having a leeway disproportionate to the weight attached - in fact it happens in shots where only the monkeys are shown, obviously taken when nothing or very little was attached to the part of the rope off camera. (01:38:25)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Goldie Hawn needs to cross a suspension bridge; in the close-up of her feet, the trademark stilettos just get on the rocky floor scattered as you'd expect, one across the other. They are neatly arranged in the following shot though; I don't believe we have to assume she stopped to properly rest them parallel and upright. (01:37:10)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Rick is hiding from Diggs in a small nook, making use of the pipes on the wall. You can see (in particular when the door shuts behind Diggs, locking him in the restricted section) that Mel Gibson's right hand has its fingertips clean, while it's shown as a bloody mess when he dismounts. (01:35:55 - 01:36:40)

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Continuity mistake: When Goldie Hawn says "I can't go to another one of your funerals", the hand she had on Mel Gibson's shoulder still peeks from the bottom of the frame, showing she has it on the front of his shoulder. But it is not so in the reverse shot. (01:30:10)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: In the scene with Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn in bed, when she is facing away from him, folded arm under her head, her hair is styled differently over her forehead in close-ups (for instance when she says "His name is Paul" she goes from having hair parted between the eyes, to a full bang). (01:16:50 - 01:18:10)

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Revealing mistake: In the close-up of the helicopter when Rach shoots it from behind the cart asking "Friends of yours, Jodie?" it already shows multiple bullet holes in the back. We saw Rach hit the copter just once before, and in the front to little to no damage. The damage appears to be gone when it takes off from picking up the gunman again. (01:06:10)

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Bird on a Wire mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When the "I'm in pursuit" guy splashes his bike into the cement, not only in the side view is there no fresh trace of Rick's bike (and the construction worker is even using his squeegee as if nothing happened), but in the POV shot you can even see that the bike is coming out of the alley into a solid well paved sidewalk. You can actually even see a camera crew (but this last part of the mistake is discernible just if you slow motion). (00:55:05)

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Continuity mistake: After escaping unscathed through the hair salon's glass door, the two fugitives on the bike make a sharp turn left; you see distinctly in the aerial shot how they are going past a dark green car while the police car fails to turn properly. In the following shot the police car is doing the wrong turn, but Rick's bike comes across the green car only a couple seconds later. (00:53:55)

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Continuity mistake: When the police rush into the bank in Wisconsin, right past the 2 protagonists pretending to be on the phone, Goldie Hawn has her left arm down straight, but is up in the next shot. Similarly, the 2 onlookers are closer than they were in the wider shot. (00:51:25)

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Continuity mistake: Rick takes the 100$ bill from Muffy's purse and walks up to the homeless man; an elderly couple is walking in the same direction and is past the barrel, but in the close-up that follows, they are a couple meters behind and pass the barrel only after a second. (00:46:15)

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Continuity mistake: The two protagonists escaped the police in Detroit; during the phone call of the bad guys to Joe, the villain with the sunglasses first activates his zippo and is about to light a cigarette, then he repeats the action from the beginning, then he does light the cigarette up and puts the lighter away, then brings a hand up to the cigarette, then the hand is actually on a descending path (looks like the continuation of the previous angle, putting away the lighter). In other words, there's choppy continuity between close-ups and wider shots. (00:41:15)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: In the car chase against the Detroit police, when Mel Gibson says "Jeeeesus!" during a hard turn as he drives having swapped with Goldie Hawn at the wheel, her legs are coming at him from the side rather than the back, and behind them there's no trace of the car he just passed by. (00:39:00)

Sammo

Bird on a Wire mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Mel Gibson is shown biting Goldie Hawn's leg he is obviously in a position with his belly down. And yet, when the car steers to the right in response to this peculiar stimulus, we see the body of the person in the car with their feet pointed up. Similar mistakes happen throughout the whole sequence. (00:38:05)

Sammo

Revealing mistake: Rick and Muffy get jumped by the police as they return to her car, but during the arrest Rick frees himself from the cops. Notice when he kicks the cop in uniform; he falls down on a table in the close-up, even breaking it, but you see the same action repeated in the background when Gibson pushes down the cop, and it's different, with no table broken and the sitting woman already standing. (00:37:15)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: When Rick and Marianne pop out of the window of the dining room of the Four Seasons, a branch of the decorative plant is so close to the window that Mel Gibson's arm touches it and moves it. In the next shot (where Gibson still is dismounting from the window), the plant has been moved aside. (00:32:20)

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Continuity mistake: Rick pushes Sorenson in the car pit; Sorenson in the first shot falls leaves the shotgun on the ground above, but he has it in the following part. To fall that way, he also fell with the left side of the body first, while the reverse shot shows the opposite. (00:20:05)

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Bird on a Wire mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At the gas station, Marianne tells 'Billy Ray'; "You laugh like him." At the very beginning of the sentence you can spot walking left to right a guy in leather jacket, curly hair, with a blue umbrella. Thirty seconds of dialogue pass, the card checkout at the pump is complete, and in the wider shot the same guy is passing again just where we left him. (00:10:50)

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Rick Jarmin: I haven't had a girlfriend for 5 years.
Marianne Graves: Really?
Rick: Yeah - Mr. Wiggly's been on bread and water for 5 years.

More quotes from Bird on a Wire

Trivia: When the agent pulls from the computer record Richard's file, an alias listed is "David Putnam - Columbia Pictures", employed from 06/04/1973 to 02/01/1975. That's an obvious reference to producer David Puttnam (two Ts), who had a brief stint as head of Columbia Pictures in 1986-87, not making many friends in the then Coca-Cola owned production company. (00:12:50)

Sammo

More trivia for Bird on a Wire

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