The Fugitive

The Fugitive (1993)

36 corrected entries

(26 votes)

Corrected entry: Before Dr. Nichols makes his speech, the host introduces him as Dr. Charles Lentz. Lentz was the surname of the other doctor who was killed in a car accident.

mightymick

Correction: He is introduced as Charles Nicholls.

No he's not! Watch it over! He is introduced wrongly.

I just watched it. He is introduced as "Dr. Charles Nichols."

Correction: This doesn't happen at all. The speaker is introduced as Dr Charles Nichols. This entry is simply wrong.

Corrected entry: The judge sentences Kimble to death by lethal injection. The judge does not have the power to decide the method of execution.

MikeH

Correction: In 1993, Illinois used lethal injection as the only form of execution. The only time they would use the electric chair was if something happened where lethal injection was not viable or did not work, however, it was never a primary option. Therefore, there were no other methods for anyone to choose and judge was merely letting Kimble know how he will be executed.

Bishop73

Corrected entry: When Kimble is being chased out of the courthouse, he tells an officer, "There's a man in a blue top coat waving a gun around and screaming - and a woman", yet Gerard was the only one chasing Kimble.

Correction: He said "screaming AT a woman'. Not AND a woman.

Brad

Corrected entry: When Kimble is being interviewed by the police, a cop says "book him." We later learn the police were still trying to find out if a one armed man could've done it. The police can't arrest someone if the investigation is still ongoing. An arrest is supposed to mark the end of an investigation, the trial is the next stage.

MikeH

Correction: The police never took the 'one-armed man' story seriously, and certainly never looked into it with any real interest. As was shown later, the police believe that Kimble killed his wife for the money and charged him on that basis. Fred Sykes is shown claiming to have been interviewed and to have a (false) alibi for the murder; which indicates that the police at best did a cursory check of any local 'one armed men' in order to discredit Kimble's defence.

Corrected entry: Sykes told Deputy Gerard that he wasn't even in Chicago that night and 15 people verified it. (01:30:00)

Correction: Yes. And then they learned he got back to Chicago in time to commit the murders.

MasterOfAll

Corrected entry: In the flashback scene, Kimball is introduced to Lentz at the fundraiser on the night of the murder. The hitman is also obviously in Chicago to commit the murder. But it is later established and made much use of in the plot development that both Lentz and the hitman were in Cancun on a sail fishing junket on the night of the murder.

Correction: The images of the fishing trip are used to prove that Sykes and Lentz knew each other. It is never suggested that the trip was supposed to be at the same time as the murder took place.

Tailkinker

Corrected entry: In the shot right before Kimble jumps off of the dam, you can see the dam is angled out. There is no way he could have cleared it when he jumped.

Correction: He didn't clear it. He jumped outward as far as he could, then fell into the falling water on the side of the dam before landing in the river below.

BocaDavie

Corrected entry: When Dr. Richard Kimble is nearly run over by the freight train, look closely at the axles of the locomotive passing overhead. Diesel locomotives have large electric motors on each axle that actually propel the train. These electric motors are missing which would be similar to a car without a transmission. There is no way for a locomotive to move under its own power without these electric motors.

Correction: This only applies to diesel-electric locomotives, not direct diesel locomotives.

This is a diesel-electric locomotive. You can even see the matching gear on the otherwise bare axle.

Corrected entry: After the bus has crashed they show a shot of a dead convict with his feet against a broken window, looking out at the train. Two or three shots go by and his feet are in a different position each time.

Correction: The stabbed prison officer is lying get on top of him and you can actually see the legs move in relation to the guard moving on the body.

Corrected entry: Kimble searches records of people who have had prosthetic arms installed, which is how he eventually finds Frederick Sykes. Kimble and his lawyers should have been given access to those records prior to his trial, and if so, there's a good chance they would have found a record of Frederick Sykes.

mightymick

Correction: It's unlikely that Kimble was allowed to just browse a medical database and meet the resulting names face to face back while he was on trial. It would have been the police following up on Kimble's claims of a one armed perp, but they already didn't believe Kimble was telling the truth, so they wouldn't have pursued it the way Kimble would have wanted. Plus, Sykes himself mentioned that he was questioned about the murder a year ago, but he had an alibi. It was only after a determined Kimble broke into his house and violated due process that they were able to actually begin to get evidence.

Garlonuss

Corrected entry: When Richard Kimble is walking, there is one shot of him walking into a train tunnel. The camera is mounted on top of a train and the train is clearly visible at the bottom of the screen. You see the train for a few seconds and then you see the shot focusing in on Richard, as if they've just discovered their mistake.

Correction: This is not a mistake as such as it only appears in the full frame version of the movie. Originally the film was shot on 4:3 film but framed for 1.85:1 presentation. The final negative would then have been masked top and bottom so any information outside of the widescreen area could not be seen (including in this instance the edge of the train). However on the 4:3 home video version, rather than cropping the picture and losing information at the side of the screen, a compromise has been made and the negative has been unmasked instead which, while revealing more detail at the top and bottom of the screen, now allows the train to be seen.

Corrected entry: When Samuel arrives at Cook County Hospital after learning that Kimble might be there, it is pitch black. In the next scene when he is questioning Dr. Eastman, it is broad daylight out.

Correction: It's a time cut, not a mistake. Gerard arrived at the hospital; likely spoke to either hospital administration and security; questioned doctors, nurses, patients, and hospital personnel; all of which takes time. Nothing about the scene between Gerard and Eastman suggests that it takes place moments after his arrival at the hospital. Dr. Eastman is wearing a jacket, suggesting it's the end of her shift; Gerard speaks to her as if she'd already been questioned by his people; and at no point does Gerard run out the door to try to locate Kimble who slipped out during his arrival.

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: When the cops get called to the one-armed man's house: 1) When they start listing his address off the call tracer, they give an address that does not exist. 2) Even if it did exist, it's not on the South Side - it would be in the Loop, less than half a mile from where they are. 3) When they finally pull up to the house, the address actually on the house doesn't match the address they supposedly traced the call to - it's in the 11000 block, not the 200 block. 4) An address on the 11000 block of that street would be outside of the city of Chicago, and out of the jurisdiction of Chicago cops; yet they conduct a stakeout of his house anyway.

Correction: To address those points 1 & 2: This film also uses a fictional hospital ('Chicago Memorial') and a fictional lock up where Kimble visits a one armed man then evades the Marshalls. The one armed man's address not exisiting in reality is no more a mistake than these other two examples. In the world of this film, the address exists and does so at the specified location. As for point 3): The US Marshalls have instructed the police to stakeout the house in their search for Kimble. Co-operation between police from different jurisdictions is hardly unusual in major cases.

Okay; that leaves us with point 3): that the cops trace the call to "256 South St. Lawrence," but when they pull up, the address on the building is in the 11000 block.

Corrected entry: In the scene when Kimble jumps from the train, a moment later the bus is demolished by the train and roars past Kimball. A moment later, Kimble is almost run over by the engine, indicating he must have run down the tracks faster than the train.

Correction: A few moments after smashing into the bus, we see one of the cars (which may also be an engine-type car) decouple from the car in front and derail, almost running Kimble down. It may be an engine car, but it was not at the front of the train.

JC Fernandez

Corrected entry: In the crime scene photos and the flashbacks shown during Kimble's trial, the murdered Helen Kimble is lying on her side (where she died making the 911 call). Later, in Kimble's nightmare, she's lying on her back, when he turned her over to try to revive her, and later embrace her when he realized she was dead. He admitted to moving her, so shouldn't she have been in this position in the earlier scenes? Certainly for the crime scene photos at least.

Correction: The position was different in his NIGHTMARE, his mind. Kimble would be unable to recall the ordeal in perfect detail. We should only consider the crime scene photos accurate.

Corrected entry: When the police officer is describing Kimble to a man he thinks isn't him (really is), he says "brown hair". Kimble didn't have brown hair - it was gray.

Correction: Character mistake: he misremembers. Happens all the time.

Phixius

Corrected entry: On the train towards the end Sykes kills the transit cop, and Richard Kimble is subsequently blamed for it. However, throughout the scene of Sykes killing the cop and his and Kimble's fight, there are at least two other people in the same car watching the whole thing who would be able to say with certainty that Kimble was not the one who killed the cop. He should never have been a suspect in that killing.

Correction: The logic however behind that is the police and everyone else knew what the audience does. In reality once Kimble and Sykes got off the train there was no telling what happened to those two people or what they told the police. Added to this Kimble was identified by the transit cop before being shot. The fact they are chasing a convicted murderer it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to think he was involved with the killing on the train. In the end Kimble is exonerated so obviously they must have eventually discovered he didn't kill the cop.

Lummie

Correction: This mistake has already been corrected.

Corrected entry: At the end of the film when Kimble is fighting the other doctor on the roof of the hotel, they crash through a glass skylight into the elevator shaft. Tommy Lee Jones and Joey Pantoliano get to the broken window and look down at them, Joey holding his pistol out as if to shoot Kimble in the elevator shaft. Jones says no to him and he reholsters. Joey's pistol in this scene appears to be a stainless steel one, either a 1911 or a Smith and Wesson. However, inside the hotel later, in the climactic laundry room scene, Joey is holding a mid sized model Glock (all matte black), which is the one the other doc steals from him and tries to shoot Jones with.

Correction: Might it be possible that Joey Pantoliano's character follows the same protocol as exhibited earlier by Tommy Lee Jones' character, they carry more than one weapon, of different types? Remember at the dam, when Jones' lost his gun after a fall, and he had a second weapon on him?

Corrected entry: When Tommy Lee Jones has found out that Kimble is in "the presidential suite" he turns the car and goes to the hotel. If you look at the way he is turning the wheel compared to in what direction the car actually moves you will see that it doesn't fit - the car turns around to the left but the wheel is turned to the right.

Correction: Turning the wheel to the right is not a mistake. It is a common driving technique called counter-steering. When they whip the car around you would need to do this as well. Anyone that has driven in the snow or ice will know what I'm talking about.

Character mistake: Kimble has just finished talking on the phone with his lawyer when the cops hear the noise in the background. They figure out the sound is that of an El-Train. They then start to list the different places that have an El. One of the cities they name is Milwaukee - there has never been an El-Train there.

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Trivia: When "Richard" starts to limp it wasn't planned, Harrison actually hurt a ligament in his knee shooting a promo for the movie, a promo that wasn't even part of the movie. He refused to receive treatment until filming was finished and ended up needing surgery.

More trivia for The Fugitive

Question: When Kimble is in the hospital with the boy he changes the diagnosis to what? I have tried to look but it cuts away as he's writing it down on the boy's file.

Answer: When Richard changes the diagnosis, the first thing he writes down is "AO" which is medical shorthand for aorta. Many people who have medical degrees and saw the movie speculate that Joel had an aortic tear. This would cause blood to flow into the chest cavity making it difficult to breathe and with the impact from the crash it could have caused the fatal injury. An aortic tear requires immediate surgery and by changing Joel's diagnosis, Kimble was able to save his life.

Answer: Kimble is watching as the doctor, Al, looks at the chest film and states "possible fractured sternum, he's stable," and we can see Kimble's bothered by that. Then Kimble is told to take the boy to observation room 2. When Kimble questions the boy and looks at the chest film, Kimble ignores what he was told, and instead heads directly for the surgical OR. In the elevator he draws a line over the incorrect essential diagnosis: "depress chest w/ poss fr" (possible fracture), and begins to write "Ao," then he scribbles a signature on the Patient of Dr line. The essential diagnosis Kimble writes is presumably an Aortic trauma, which is a life-threatening critical injury and requires immediate attention. So when Kimble brings the boy to the OR (instead of observation room 2) for the emergency medical procedure, he tells the doctor the boy was sent up from downstairs. The child is then taken to operating room 4, STAT, saving the child's life.

Super Grover

Its a pneumothorax, is air trapped between the lung and the ribcage and it's very common.

Answer: The presumption is the boy was misdiagnosed and he changed the chart to the correct diagnosis. The doctor says later that he saved the boy's life. Most likely he changed the charge to order specific tests.

Answer: It's never specified what he changed the orders to, nor is it important to know. This was done only add to the plot where the other doctor noticed him looking at the X-ray, arousing her suspicion, then creating suspense as Kimble barely escapes from the hospital.

raywest

We know it isn't important know, it's just a point of curiosity.

True and if you notice that's the always reliable Julianne Moore as the other doctor. This was the first movie that she did that was lampooned in Mad magazine, the next would be Mocking Jay Part 1.

Rob245

"The Lost World: Jurassic Park" and "Hannibal" were both lampooned by Mad before "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1."

Bishop73

I totally get that you're curious about it. Just saying that filmmakers usually aren't concerned with showing small details like that. They use broader strokes to tell the story.

raywest

A lot of film makers do put in small details into their work. Yes, some are lazy, for example, repeating 1 or 2 paragraphs in a news article too look like they whole page is filled. Others take time to have the whole thing filled out, even adding funny things for the viewer who paused the video to read. This is why there's a lot of trivia entries and questions about what something small was or meant. A casual viewer wouldn't know if what they saw meant something or was the film makers being lazy.

Bishop73

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