The Jackal
The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Declan gets a good shot off on the Jackal's leg that hits through the concrete wall. However when it cuts to the next shot the Jackal is holding a different part of his leg than where he was shot, and the hole in his pants and blood are gone. (01:49:45)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After The Jackal shoots Koslova, he places a pillow under her head to prop it up. Once at rest, her face is clear of any hair. It then cuts to the Jackal as he tells her about her blood being black and she has 20 minutes to live, then back to her. And now she has some strands of hair down over her left eye. (01:25:40)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: As Declan is holding Koslova as she dies, her hand is on the side of his face. As she takes her last breath, you see her index and middle finger next to his ear, while her ring finger and pinkie are bent in and touching his neck. It then cuts to a shot of Declan's face as he reacts to her death, and suddenly her hand is flat on his cheek with all fingers on it, just before it drops as the life leaves her. (01:28:10)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Witherspoon is shot in the head by The Jackal, we see a large blood splat hit the wall behind him. But later as Declan is running through the house while the FBI and paramedics are there, he runs past this same spot and now the blood splat is much closer to the corner of the wall. (01:24:30 - 01:27:00)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The Jackal kills Witherspoon, who stumbles back against the stairwell wall and is in a sitting position. He's seen behind Koslova as she's kneeling behind the couch trying to shoot the Jackal back. Witherspoon's body is then shown again after the Jackal shoots Koslova and is approaching her as she tries to crawl away. Witherspoon's body changes positions in several ways. Most notably, his head is now sitting more straight up and closer to the doorknob. His legs are bent up more with his feet now almost touching the table leg. And also the rug he is on is bunched up more, having only 1 large bump before, but now having two. (01:24:50 - 01:25:20)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At Isabella's house, Koslova is walking with her into the kitchen as the FBI is placing her in protection. As they are walking, Koslova has nothing in her mouth and as the camera pans around, she starts to lift her right arm up to her face with her cigarette in her right hand. The camera cuts to a frontal view of her, and suddenly she has a cigarette in her mouth and is now taking it out with her left hand. (01:18:45)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The Jackal leaps in front of the metro train to get on the other side as it passes as he is attempting to escape Declan. As he lands, the train skids to a stop and you can see a red reflector or light close to Jackal's head, with one of the doors of the train by it. After it cuts to Declan trying to get through the train, then back to The Jackal getting up, the number 81,622 suddenly appears next to the train door which was not there in the previous shot. (01:47:45)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Once the Jackal sets off the music at Isabella's house, making Koslova rush outside, the other FBI agent upstairs starts running down them when the Jackal shoots him though the stairs, leaving many bullet holes. As he falls down the stairs though, they seem clean and unscathed. A few shots later as the Jackal is coming out from under the stairs, you can now see there is damage to them. Most notably the large chunk of splintered wood on the 5th step up that appears. (01:22:45)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Deliberate mistake: Declan and Preston are hanging out at an airfield in a blue car when they realise one of the numbers in the notebook they have is an FBI access code that The Jackal now has. In establishing shot of this scene you see the blue car sitting more towards the left with Declan on the hood. Then when Preston calls in this finding and they get a helicopter to come pick them up, in the shot with the chopper coming the car is now suddenly much further to the right. It seems they had to move it during filming to allow a place for the chopper to land. (01:19:05 - 01:20:30)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Revealing mistake: As the Jackal is opening up his large weapon onto Lemont and Lemont's car, there is a close up of the car's fender as bullet holes get riddled through it. Just before the third hole appears, you can see an outline in the paint where a patch is covering one of the special effects explosive charges rigged to blow the hole open. (01:01:05)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The Jackal tells Lemont to run, and as he turns his head to give the Jackal a questioning look, his hair becomes noticeably more sweaty between shots. As well as a strand of hair is now raked over his forehead whereas before it was clear. (00:58:35)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the Jackal sets down the equipment for the gun, he flips the lid off the ammo box and lets it tumble down onto the ground in front of it. You can see the lid fall flat upside down still under the tarp of the gun. Once the Jackal uncovers it and then bends down to pick up ammo from the box, neither he nor Lemont touch the lid. But in the next shot with him standing up to put the bullets into the gun, the lid of the ammo box is now propped up against the box. A few moments later, after Jackal tells Lemont to shut his mouth, the lid is back where it was before lying on the ground upside down. (00:55:25)

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Continuity mistake: When the Jackal sees that some men are watching him, he heads into a Cyber Cafe. When walking up the cashier is at his desk with his arm down at his side, a black wrist band on his arm. The very next shot from inside, the cashier now suddenly has his arm up against his face. The Jackal then walks up to him and asks to use a computer, which the guy them responds with sure and looks back down at what he was reading. His arm still up at his head. The Jackal then heads towards a computer and the angle changes again, and now suddenly the cashier's arm is back down. (00:47:10)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the Jackal meets Douglas, once they are sitting down there are 4 glasses on the table in front of them. As the Jackal reaches for his, closes to him, the one on the far end of the table has two olives in it and a red straw/toothpick sticking out of them. The straw is pointed out and away from the Jackal. In the shot where Douglas says that the Jackal is never going to call him, the straw is now pointed towards the Jackal. (00:42:00 - 00:42:35)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the Jackal takes the tarp off the gun and you see the lens cover sleeve, we then see another shot with the tarp lying on the ground behind the weapon where the Jackal would sit. The lens cover sleeve is not visible anywhere yet. But then a minute later after he's firing the gun up and getting it ready, the shot shows the tarp behind the Jackal, and now the lens cover sleeve is sitting on top of the tarp in clear view. (00:55:40 - 00:57:05)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: On the FBI's private jet, while discussing the Jackal, Preston has a book on the table in front of him. The book's edge is nearly perfectly running parallel to the edge of the table and is a good 2-4 inches away from the edge. When Koslova smarts off to Declan about how he got caught, getting up to walk towards another part of the plane, the camera cuts to a different angle as Declan watches her in a stunned expression. Suddenly now Preston's book is crooked with the bottom corner of it almost right at the edge of the table. (00:52:30)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: As the MVD and FBI are together watching the footage of the torture and interrogation of Politovsky, Witherspoon has his hand up on his face. The camera cuts to an angle from behind everybody showing the screen and now his arm is down. It then cuts to a closer shot of him sitting beside Preston and his hand is back up again on his mouth. (00:18:20)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the agents make their move on Politovsky, they fire a rubber ball at his chest to knock him down and stun him. As he hits the ground, his brown bag falls from his hand and slides a few inches away from him. You can see the straps and latches of the cover sticking up in the air from the side of the bag facing up, indicating the bag is facing upwards. When the two men go over to him to grab Politovsky and throw him into the van, you can see the bag is a little closer to him now, and lying face down. (00:14:10)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Isabella slips Declan a key to a locker as they walk towards the dock where her husband and daughter are. They stop and have a conversation and during the entire scene, Isabella's hair swaps from blowing in the wind up wildly to lying down barely moving calm every time the camera changes from a shot of her to a shot of Declan and back. (00:35:50 - 00:37:20)

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Continuity mistake: Near the end of the movie, the Jackal tries to kill the first lady in Washington. This is where the hospital opening takes place. When he flees into the subway station, the name it has is indeed of a station in Washington (Capitol Heights), the subway-cars however are from the Montreal subway system (which ride around on rubber tyres). (01:45:10 - 01:47:55)

More mistakes in The Jackal
Video

Declan Mulqueen: Preston, what about letting me have a gun?
Preston: Are you crazy? If the right people knew I was letting you walk around without cuffs, I'd have forced retirement.
(01:08:45)

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More quotes from The Jackal

Trivia: Just a few months before his death at age 91, Fred Zinnermann, who directed the original The Day of the Jackal (1973), on which this movie is based, actually fought Universal Studios to change the name of the film. Saying that the original had stood the test of time and he did not want the remake to bear the same name. (00:01:25)

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More trivia for The Jackal

Question: Why didn't Koslova try to fight while the Jackal is talking to her?

Answer: Because she's dying, in shock, losing blood, and in pain.

raywest

Answer: She's in too much pain to fight. He also just helped her to slow her bleeding, after that she seems to weirdly trust him.

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