The Jackal
The Jackal mistake picture

Revealing mistake: Near the end of the film, when Bruce Willis is trying to escape into the Metro station, he swipes his fare card through the turnstile reader upside down - you can see the magnetic strip is visible above the slot. It still works anyway. (01:45:30)

The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When The Jackal comes out of the subway tunnel and steps onto the platform, he shoots a subway cop coming towards him. The cop falls backwards with his head pointing away from the subway tracks. In the next shot, the camera is in front of The Jackal and we can see the cop in the background with his head pointing towards the tracks now. A couple of shots later, Declan comes out of the same tunnel and checks the cop to see if he's alive, and the cop's body is back to its original position with the head pointing away from the tracks again. (01:50:15)

The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: As the FBI and Richard Gere rush to the hospital to save the First Lady they are flying in a helicopter. You see a shot of the helicopter flying over buildings then it cuts to dialogue inside then back to the landscape shot. However in the first shot the helicopter carries the number "28" on the side. When it cuts back after the dialogue it has "29" on the side of it. (01:36:35 - 01:40:00)

The Jackal mistake picture

Visible crew/equipment: After Bruce shoots Lemont with the big gun, you can see the crew's reflection in his sunglasses as he's rubbing his ear. (01:01:20)

The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Bruce Willis turns the big gun on Lemont, the ammo feed belt falls out. The next time you see the weapon the ammo feed belt has been placed back in. (00:58:20)

The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Before the Jackal attempts to assassinate the First Lady, the Chairperson calls the Surgeon General to the podium. In the shot from behind as he shakes her hand then walks up, you can see to the right there is the shadow of him and the podium, with no other shadows visible around him or near him. But then it cuts to a wide angle from in front in the crowd and the shadows are all different, with some even now behind him from the building. (01:36:25)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Bruce Willis is driving his car to the abandoned warehouse to get the "gun" to commit the assassination on the first lady, the vehicle does not have a license plate... You can see that it is missing, plain as day... In the next scene, he pulls a switch, removing a once non-existent plate and replacing it with another. (00:45:50 - 00:49:15)

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Suggested correction: These scenes take place at least half a day apart. The shot where he has no licence plate is during mid day. There is then an unknown time laps to night time after he's left that area and hanging out at a restaurant eating. There is plenty of time between these moments for him to have stopped and attached a licence plate to his van. Reasons for this happening are never shown or stated but it's not unreasonable to think that he could have removed the plates to go to one location and then added plates to go somewhere else in one of his ways of masking his movements. In fact, when he's going into the parking garage to spray off the paint on his van, he even changes out his licence plate at that point showing that he has multiple. This is just speculation but there's enough backing that this can not be considered a definitive mistake.

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Toward the end of the movie, the assassin (Willis) fatally shoots the female Russian agent (Venora). As Willis is advising Venora that she will die within twenty minutes, he draws a picture on her cheek with her own blood (a grim pictogram of a love heart). When Gere arrives on the scene a few minutes later, there is no sign of blood anywhere on Venora's face. Obviously, the authorities would not have washed away such a vital clue. Neither would emergency personnel have transferred the victim from the floor where she was lying, onto the living room couch; rather, they would have put her on the ambulance stretcher. (01:26:00 - 01:27:15)

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Suggested correction: There is several minutes taking place between these two shots, and Koslova is alive during that time. She was on the floor when the Jackal draws it on her face, and then when Declan is with her, she's on the couch. It is likely that the paramedics moved her to the couch, or she may have moved herself. We don't know how much time lapsed between her conversation with The Jackal and when the medical team arrived. It's very probable that she wiped it off herself. She had blood on her face drawn in a picture by a sadistic killer she hates that just killed two of her friends and is now leaving her to a slow painful death. If I were in that situation and that guy drew a heart on my face with my own blood, I'd wipe it off too. You can still see a faint bit of red on her cheek where it was.

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At the marina, around the time the kids burn the firecrackers, the Russian Major is smoking a cigarette. In one shot it's slightly bent, then in the next it's straight. (01:08:40)

The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Near the end of the film, as Willis is about to shoot the First Lady, we see a close up of him wearing sunglasses (part of his cop disguise) and looking through his binoculars. We then switch to the binocular view of the podium, but the shot is not given a darkened tint - it looks as if he is looking through the binoculars without the sunglasses. When we switch back to the first view of his face, however, the sunglasses are back in place. (01:36:10)

The Jackal mistake picture Video

Continuity mistake: During the briefing on the hood of the car, after the regatta, both Mulqueen and McMurphy change positions at the cut from wide to closeup. Mulqueen is at the side of the car in the wide shot with his arms crossed, then leaning against the car with his hands on the hood in the close up. McMurphy is about a foot behind Preston in the wide to right beside him in the closeup then back again. Also Koslova lights her cigarette twice during the scene. (01:08:20)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Factual error: On the ferry boat ride, which should have been from Canada to the United States, they were aboard a North Carolina ferry... The North Carolina flag was flapping in the wind next to the US flag. There was a closeup, and you could even see the name of the boat, which is named after a North Carolina Governor, and home ported in Moorhead City, North Carolina. (01:15:20)

The Jackal mistake picture

Revealing mistake: When The Jackal shoots Koslova through the couch, you can see a small hole in the fabric of the couch already there, before it's made larger by the special effects team's work. (01:25:05)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the Jackal is sailing over the Great Lake, he sees the coast guard and puts his hat on. In the shot where he is putting it on, there is only one boat behind him with a yellow sail. It cuts to the coast guard then back to the Jackal, and now there are 6 boats behind him, none with a yellow sail, and the sun is no longer visibly behind him reflecting off the water. The director stated that this happened because the shot where he puts the hat on was a reshoot. The shot with the 6 boats behind him was filmed in Lake Michigan, whereas the other shot was done in the Atlantic Ocean. (01:07:30)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Koslova is asleep on a couch just before Declan is going for his razor and finds the gun in the drawer. The close up shot shows her in one position with her hands on a book, but then it jump cuts to further away to show Declan walking up. Now suddenly her hands are not on top of each other, the book is sticking out less, her hair is further down over her face, her jacket is covering more of her arm and legs, and her position on the pillow is slightly different. (00:43:25)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: As the FBI and Koslova are walking away from Declan at the prison grounds, they are walking almost in line with each other with Preston in the front, Witherspoon in the back, and then Koslova and the other guy between them. But when it cuts to them stopping to turn around in response to what Declan says, they are suddenly almost standing shoulder to shoulder with each other. (00:27:30)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Revealing mistake: As Politovsky is walking up on the orange van before they ambush him, you can see one of the men walk past the left back door and can see the window on it. The window is completely covered in frost with no parts disturbed. Then after they shoot Politovsky with the rubber ball and are loading him into the back of the van, you can see the door again but now there are clear finger prints on the window in the frost from where they did previous takes of this shot in filming where the guy grabbed the door there to close it. (00:14:00)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Going down the escalator, Declan decides to jump off it and slide down the metal between like a slide as he can't get around the people. During the slide, there is a jump cut to a closer angle. Between these shots, most of the people on either side of him completely change positions and location. (01:46:10)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the Jackal shoots the cop in the subway, he grabs a girl to take hostage. Just before he grabs her, you see an old Asian man and two women walking up on his left. As the shot cuts to a front view of him as he grabs the girl, the man disappears and the two girls that were walking up are now different people with different clothes on as they run past his left side. But then after he walks a few feet, suddenly the old man and the same two girls appear again, but passing him several seconds later than they would have. (01:50:20)

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Factual error: Just before Declan and the Jackal start shooting at each other in the subway tunnel, one of the trains starts coming from the opposite direction and begins passing Declan. This train continues to pass him at full speed for a full 35-40 seconds while they shoot it out. Subway trains are not nearly long enough for that. Also, during this time another train comes from behind him and he has to get between them and hold onto the light for a few seconds while they pass. But the second train then passes first while the first one passes fully about 2 seconds after the second one came... and it got there first, by about 15-20 seconds. Subway lines are about the same length as each other as well. But the first one was way longer and way wrong. (01:49:30 - 01:50:05)

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More mistakes in The Jackal
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Isabella: Some nights I can close my eyes... and sleep... and no dead faces come to wake me. That's... that's more than I ever had. You wouldn't have me give that up, would you?
Declan Mulqueen: Give me some credit, will ya?
(00:36:40)

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More quotes from The Jackal

Trivia: When Richard Gere asks Koslova about her name, you can hear the theme song for the 1970's TV show Kojak playing in the background. Richard Gere was in the Season 4, Episode 1 of this show called Birthday Party. (00:29:10)

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More trivia for The Jackal

Question: What is the title and author of the music played at Isabella's house on the stereo?

Answer: It's called "Red Tape" by Agent Provocateur.

More questions & answers from The Jackal

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