Visible crew/equipment: When Ed Exley and Jack Vincennes are driving around looking for the alleged Nite Owl murder suspects, spotlights can be seen in the reflection of Vincennes' sunglasses.
Directed by: Curtis Hanson
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger, James Cromwell
Visible crew/equipment: When Ed Exley and Jack Vincennes are driving around looking for the alleged Nite Owl murder suspects, spotlights can be seen in the reflection of Vincennes' sunglasses.
Factual error: In the scene where Lt. Exley arrives at the Night Owl after the murder, the patrol officer is wearing a Safariland velcro-fastened handcuff case on his left hip. That style of rounded cuff case was not introduced until the early to mid 70s.
Bud White: Merry Christmas.
Lynn Bracken: Merry Christmas to you, officer.
Bud White: That obvious, huh?
Lynn Bracken: It's practically stamped on your forehead.
Trivia: Had the film been successfully adapted into a TV series, Jack Vincennes would have been played by Kiefer Sutherland. Coincidentally, one of Sutherland's co-stars in The Sentinel (2006) is Kim Basinger, who won an Oscar for her role in this film; James Cromwell played his father in season six of "24."
Question: Ed Exley recommends that the LAPD shift the blame for Bloody Christmas to men whose pensions are secured, and he names Bud White and Richard Stensland as two such men. But when Dudley Smith later tells Bud White that Stensland has been forced to retire, White says "A year from his pension!" So was Stensland entitled to a pension or not?
Answer: Exley is suggesting two things: to shift some blame to three officers with secured pensions and forcing them to retire; when he refers to White and Stensland though, he is saying "someone has to swing" and that they should be charged, tried and imprisoned - so Stensland is not entitled to a pension.
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