The Bourne Identity

The Bourne Identity (2002)

37 corrected entries

(6 votes)

Corrected entry: When Bourne gets off the ship in the very beginning of the film, he is in the harbour of Imperia in Italy. Then he travels to Zurich by train. On the seats of the train you can see the logo TGV which are the French Railway's high speed trains. A French train doesn't travel from Italy to Switzerland.

Correction: Although the scene in the harbor may have been shot in Italy, within the context of the story, it takes place in Marseille. Jason then travels the high speed lines to Zurich from there.

Corrected entry: When Bourne is escaping from the Embassy and standing on the fire escape ledge, the safety cable for the later climbing scenes is clearly visible on the ledge around the corner to the right. (00:22:35)

Correction: It's some random seemingly old wire, and it has nothing to do with "safety."

Corrected entry: In the farmhouse shooting Damon shoots the assassin with a shotgun from a pretty big distance. Due to the dispersion of the little lead bullets the injury should not that bad as it is shown.

Correction: Shotgun ammunition comes in varying types, ranging from the traditional "little lead bullets" through larger and larger pellets and finally arriving at single slug ammunition. A single slug (or some of the larger pellets) could easily do the damage shown at the range in question.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: Jason first sees Marie inside the US embassy before he meets her out back. Marie was not going to the USA and she wasn't a citizen of the US, so why was she in the US embassy trying to take care of her student visa and passport problems?

jaws65

Correction: Marie is trying to get to America. If you watch the behind the scenes on the DVD it's mentioned. So if she's trying to get to America she would have to get a visa from the embassy.

Corrected entry: When Bourne fights the two policemen in the park, he grabs the nightstick when poked with it and it bends, showing that it is a fake rubber night stick.

Correction: That's no mistake. A lot of police forces use rubber sticks instead of hard ones, because they are more effective.

Corrected entry: Jason demands a meeting with Conklin at 17:30 local time in France. Assuming he woke up at 8:00 spent half an hour with the Professor and returning to the farm, this gives him nine hours to get to the rendezvous. A commercial liner takes 8 hours to fly from Washington to Paris at 950 km/h, and a smaller plane like he used would top out at 750 km/h. He doesn't have enough time.

Correction: He's not in Washington. He's in France.

MoonFaery

Corrected entry: The climax scene of the movie is at night. Chris Cooper's character looks into a room to see if Matt Damon's character is in it. Daylight is streaming through the windows like morning. Next shot has dark windows again.

Correction: It's not daylight that is streaming through, it's the neon lights from the signs outside the building.

AFosteROTC

Corrected entry: Why does the fire escape ladder in the beginning only go down about 3 feet on a 6-7 story building?

Correction: The door to that fire escape was locked and in a sealed off area. It was obviously not in use because of that very reason and because the entire platform was clearly unstable.

Corrected entry: How was it that Jason Bourne was able to travel from Marseilles to the bank in Switzerland without a passport? Even a spy of his magnitude couldn't pull that one off.

Correction: At this time Switzerland reserved the right to randomly spot check passports, but they rarely do. Their concern was smuggling more than individuals.

Corrected entry: Throughout the movie, there are countless references to the incident early in the movie at the U.S. Embassy in Zurich. Neither the U.S. nor any other country maintains an embassy in Zurich. The capital of Switzerland is Bern. Since most of the characters in the movie work for the U.S. government, they would surely know the difference between an embassy and a consulate. (00:27:34)

Correction: There are actually only two references to the incident at the consulate. The first one is made by Bourne who does call it an embassy but in his state it might just be a generalisation, and the second one is made by Ward Abbott who correctly identifies the location of the incident as a consulate.

Tanngrisnir

If you mean the scene right after the consulate when he approaches Marie in the alleyway by her car, he does call it the consulate.

Corrected entry: After Bourne enters Eamon's house and discovers the Christmas lights still on, he knows they have to leave, but they don't leave in time to avoid Eamon returning home. But as he leaves the house to meet Eamon, you can see the Christmas lights blinking through the opened window. They would have seen the lights as they approached the house, wouldn't have entered the house at all, and would have avoided the entire scene the next day.

Correction: It's not uncommon for Christmas lights to have timers to turn them off and on. It's not the lights that convinced Bourne they could not stay, it's the signs of very recent occupancy inside the home that tell him the homeowners have left relatively recently and therefore could be back at any time.

Phixius

Corrected entry: When the agent ambushes Jason and Marie in Jason's Paris flat, they have a really impressive fight sequence. During this fight, Jason breaks the other man's leg. When he gets up off the floor after the fight and runs to the window to jump out, he doesn't have even the slightest hint of a limp.

Correction: Jason doesn't break the leg, he hyper-extends the knee. This hurts his opponent quite a bit, but as is also demonstrated by the pen-stabbing, the assailant is able to ignore the pain to do what he needs to do. It's part of his training.

Phixius

No, he broke his leg below the knee.

Correction: If he had broken it... you would see the bone protruding. Even if he had broken it. If he was able to ignore the pain there may have been no need for a limp. Also running a short distance would make it difficult to identify a limp.

Corrected entry: Right when Womboosi is shot, he is already past the window when the shots come through. Obviously done for the safety of the actor or stuntman, but visible.

Correction: If the shooter is at an angle to the window, his best shot would be when Womboosi is past the window.

Corrected entry: At the beginning of the film, the Italian sailor gives Bourne some money, saying something along the lines of "it's not much but it should get you to Switzerland." Yet in the shots we get of Bourne on the train, he is in a first-class car. (00:09:30)

Correction: It may not have been much but it was apparently enough to buy a first class ticket. Extravagant perhaps but not a mistake.

tw_stuart

Correction: This is a character mistake rather than a movie mistake. Chris Cooper's character is under severe pressure.

tw_stuart

Corrected entry: A minor (though not story-shattering) plot hole: During their drive from Zurich to Paris, Jason and Marie would have found the Swiss-French border in their way - something which doesn't even seem to cross their minds (or the minds of the CIA agents who are trying to track them). Given that Jason had just caused a major security panic at the US Consulate in Zurich, getting out of Switzerland would probably have been a bit trickier than portrayed in the film. Even if the CIA and the Swiss police didn't know where they were headed, they did have IDs on both Jason and Marie, as well as a description of their car. One way or another, Jason and Marie would have had to figure out a way to get into France undetected. Yes, maybe we're "bending reality" a bit here for the purposes of the film, but as a frequent international traveller, this is one "bending" that bugs me a bit. I wish I could make pain-in-the-neck border officers disappear that easily.

Correction: I used to live in Switzerland and drive to France all the time without being stopped at the border. The border guards are much stricter when entering Switzerland but there are roads which are fully guarded only during the day with occasional guards at night to catch out those who shop too much in France (they even have voluntary customs posts believe it or not because the Swiss are alarmingly honest). In general, leaving Switzerland is easy so there's no mistake.

tw_stuart

Corrected entry: When Conklin is on the bridge for his meeting with Jason, he removes his coat over his shoulders and reveals a vest underneath. When the shot is changed to Jason's binoculars, he is wearing no vest and just the blue shirt shows.

Correction: Watch again more closely and you will see that he has a blazer on underneath and that he pauses as he takes off the overcoat to take off the blazer at the same time.

Corrected entry: During the car chase scene, one of the motorcycle police falls off his bike, and his bike slides into a white BMW. When the shot changes, it is now a blue BMW. (00:52:50)

Correction: The BMW is the same car, it looks different from a different angle because of lighting.

Corrected entry: When the sniper is disassembling his rifle after he kills Wombosi, he takes a silencer off of his rifle. But when he takes it off he just slides it off the length of the barrel instead of taking it off the tip of the barrel, that means that the silencer wouldn't work because it has to catch the gasses coming out of the end of the barrel. How can it catch those gasses when it's not on the end of the barrel?

Correction: The suppressor shrouds the barrel, but extends slightly beyond it. I imagine that the design re-directs the gasses back into the tube for the baffles to slow down to subsonic speeds.

J I Cohen

Corrected entry: Damon rides in a train from France to Switzerland. It is the famous french high speed train TGV. As far as I know it is only operating in France.

Correction: According to www.tgv.com, you can go from Marseille to Zurich using this train.

Dr Wilson

The Bourne Identity mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Jason is cutting Marie's hair in the hotel room, his watch is on his left wrist. When he and Marie begin to kiss, in this flipped shot Jason's watch is on his right wrist, his moles have changed sides, and the hand-held showerhead behind them is backwards as well. Next shot his watch is back on his left wrist. The flipped shot has nothing to do with the small bathroom mirror. (01:00:56)

More mistakes in The Bourne Identity

Jason Bourne: How could I forget about you? You're the only person I know.

More quotes from The Bourne Identity

Trivia: In the final scene at the scooter shop, look at the hanging plant behind Marie. The red bank bag used throughout the movie is the pot. (01:50:23)

More trivia for The Bourne Identity

Question: During the Greece scene, there is a line strung at the end of the covered area (behind Marie) with several things hanging on it that look like seaweed, pennants, or something. What could that be?

scwilliam

Chosen answer: They are octopii hung up to dry in the sun. A common sight at Greek islands. If you search Google, there are pictures of them. They are humorously mentioned at http://www.thevisualrecord.com/dbphotopages/photopage.php?photo_id=80.

More questions & answers from The Bourne Identity

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