Corrected entry: Anthony Hopkins' entire scheme is based on the exact LAPD officer who is having an affair with his wife being the single officer who enters his home to arrest him. Per the LAPD website, on 08/29/08, there were 9753 sworn officers in the LAPD. Wrong officer responds and the entire scheme fails.
Corrected entry: Midway through the movie, Anthony Hopkins calls Ryan Gosling at Hopkins' office. Hopkins could not possibly know the exact moment Gosling would be at Hopkins' office because Hopkins was in jail at the time.
Correction: This is a case of we don't know what was happening behind the scenes. Hopkins could have been trying a few times his office to check and see if Gosling had stopped by. Hopkins would know that Gosling would visit his office at some point to try and ascertain any possible evidence. Lucky perhaps, but it doesn't contradict anything to confirm it being a mistake.
Corrected entry: Crawford shoots his wife and then fires 4 shots through the glass. But throughout the movie there are only references to 4 shots being fired and 4 shells being found.
Correction: That's right, they found 4 shells, and the gardener heard four shots. The gardener most likely miscounted how many shots he heard, as under stress that is easy to do. There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting to suggest there were more than four shots fired.
Corrected entry: In real life, Crawford could not have been retried for murder at the end. Double jeopardy means you can't be retried for the same event under a different charge. If you could, then whenever someone is acquitted of first degree murder, prosecutors would just retry them for second degree murder, then third degree murder, then voluntary manslaughter, etc.
Correction: Double Jeopardy does not apply because Crawford was tried on two different crimes (not different degrees of the same crime). He was never charged with murder during the first trial because Jennifer, his wife, was still alive (although on life support). He was tried on attempted murder. After the plug was pulled and she died, Crawford was then charged with murder because her death was a direct result of being shot. Someone can be charged with a different crime involving the same event, even after being acquitted of one of them. If Jennifer survived, was put on life support, made a recovery, but then died of an infection later, it's unlikely the D.A.'s office would charge Crawford with murder in that scenario (or if they did it's unlikely he would be convicted).
Corrected entry: Flores tells Willy "It's no good as evidence, it's never been fired." He checks the paperwork regarding the gun purchase and tells Willy "it's property of the defendant, bought about one month ago." Since the gun found actually belongs to Lt. Rob Nunally, it should have been previously fired several times. Most law enforcement officers qualify with their sidearms once to six times per year. Even if it's a new firearm, Rob would have practiced using it after its purchase. No one would bet their life on an unfired firearm. It's unlikely that both firearms would be in the same condition even if they were the same model/caliber. An LA police detective would have compared the purchase document (showing the serial number) for Ted Crawford's gun with the actual serial number on the gun found in Crawford's house. In this case, they would not have matched and any detective would look at all guns that were in the house when Crawford was taken into custody. (00:31:00 - 00:31:30)
Correction: Mr. Crawford's gun was never fired. Nunally's gun has been fired. When Mr. Crawford went to the hotel to replace his gun with Rob Nunally's gun (which was probably fired at least once). He then used Nunally's gun to kill his wife. When the police came and he and Nunally put down their guns, Nunally holstered his real gun and the murder weapon and walked it out of the door, while the weapon that the police recovered was Mr. Crawford's real gun, which is not the murder weapon, and has never been fired. So the serial number of the gun matched Mr. Crawford's real gun. Nunally's gun never really went 'missing' and he didn't suspect anything so he didn't have to run its serial number and because Nunally never fired his gun it didn't need to be processed.
Correction: Crawford tells Willie that when Nunally was reeling after realising that the victim was his lover, it was a simple thing to swap the guns. (If you remember, Nunally and Crawford had agreed to both put down their guns to enable Nunally to enter the house). So Nunally left with his police issue firearm, the murder weapon, and Crawford's 'clean' gun remained at the house.
Corrected entry: Just before the final court appearance, detective Nunelly has the bullets in the evidence room swapped to match a planted gun in the shed under the lawn mower at Ted's house. At the end of the movie, Willie says that since Ted has killed his wife by removing life support he can now access the bullet in her brain and it will match the detectives' gun. So now he can prosecute him for murder, but there is a problem. It won't match because the bullets were swapped by the detective's friend who works in the evidence room.
Correction: Nunally's gun is still the same, and the bullet in Jennifer's head does still match with the gun. The shells that was swapped would not match with the gun, but the bullet would. The bullet was in her head and would be much more important evidence than some shells that could have been planted there (by Ted or anyone else) for some reason.
That wouldn't make much sense. If the shell casings wouldn't be that relevant, why would Nunally go the trouble in replacing them to 'match' the planted gun to the shells. So any not totally incompetent lawyer would cast a huge shadow of a doubt on the evidence. Especially if the chain of evidence for the bullet in the victim's head might be cast into doubt.
Watching the final court scene, it was this exact thought regarding the evidence tampering that would have made a better finale. Sir Anthony Hopkins, having found the gun hidden on the mower, raises this point before the titles roll. That said, he deserved a murder charge for the (Scottish?) accent he went with for the film.
Correction: Hopkins asked for the detective. If you listen carefully before the detective entered the house, he was told that Hopkins was specifically asking for him before anyone else.
Lummie ★