Continuity mistake: When Ethan gets instructions on the screen in the payphone there is a countdown on a screen visible, a split second later when the camera shows the phone from a distance that screen has gone and the payphone is 'closed' again. (00:19:10)
Continuity mistake: When Cobalt piggybacks IMF's frequency, he says "Team leader, awaiting your go sign. Standing by to detonate." When Sidorov plays the recording back to Ethan in the hospital, the order has changed to "Awaiting your go sign, team leader. Standing by to detonate." (00:31:25)
Continuity mistake: When Ethan wakes up in the hospital he realises he's handcuffed to the bed. In the closeup of his right hand, the handcuff is around his wrist with its single metal bar facing out and the double bar facing Ethan, but when the nurse moves his gurney the handcuff is around his right wrist the opposite way, with the double bars facing out. Quite impossible for this to occur. (00:31:50)
Continuity mistake: As Ian chases the bad guy and the sandstorm approaches, he enters a covered area just as the shadow of the storm (moving much faster than he is) reaches him. When he exits the covered area, 5 seconds later, the shadow remains *just* overtaking him, while it should be easily 10 meters past him by then. (01:16:43)
Continuity mistake: After the sandstorm ends, there's a shot showing Ethan's back and the sand moves away. Ethan's shadow is behind him, meaning that the sun is in front of him, butwhen the shot changes to view his front, the shadow is in front of him, meaning that the sun is now behind him. (01:22:05)
Continuity mistake: Ethan is walking down the steps of the airplane and the car drives by. He is then one step back up. (01:31:15)
Factual error: When Tom Cruise chases the villain in a parking lot in Mumbai, the "Parking" sign is written in Kannada (the scene was shot in the Sun Network station at Bangalore). Regional signs in Mumbai are in Hindi or Marathi (the state language of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital).
Factual error: The cars in the car park scene are left hand drive (specially the ones involving the main action scenes), but the sequence is set in India, where the cars are right hand drive.
Continuity mistake: Early in the film, Ethan is talking with Jane in the back of the van after they have dropped off the Russian. There is a silver flexible arm lamp hanging down that is visible when the camera is on Jane, when the camera cuts to Ethan and back to Jane it is no longer visible. A few camera shots later and it has reappeared in the original location.
Continuity mistake: During the sandstorm, when Ethan is run over by the car, its left side mirror breaks, but appears fixed in the brief opposite angle.
Continuity mistake: When Ethan drives the BMW off the parking lot in Mumbai we see that his face is covered in blood. After he disarms the ICBM and the Russians comes in to arrest him we see that his face is clean.
Factual error: In the scene where Tom Cruise enters the server room and plugs his thumb drive into the server, it is a Dell power edge 2650 which was released around 5/6/2002 and stopped shipping around 8/13/2004. The building was opened in 2009 - it's beyond belief an ultra modern building would be run using a cluster of out of date, out of warranty, underpowered computers.
Factual error: Ethan Hunt's iPhone in Dubai is connected to the AT&T network in Dubai, when that network doesn't operate in the UAE.
Continuity mistake: The mess around dead Hendricks (glasses, position of suitcase) changes between shots.
Factual error: There are no areas with palm trees, Arabic market stalls etc. anywhere near Burj Khalifa. It lies in the middle of a newly developed, very polished business area.
Continuity mistake: As Ethan and Benji go through the Kremlin Benji isn't wearing glasses, but a cut later he's wearing them.
Factual error: When Ethan runs after the villain after coming out of Burj Khalifa he reaches DIFC, which is not a walkable distance from the tower, and you can see Burj next to the DIFC Gate which isn't there in reality.
Factual error: In the scene with the cars in elevators, right after Ethan jumps into a car to get the briefcase, he sees the bad guy coming down on him in the mirror, yet this is an impossible angle and there's no way he could have seen that.
Other mistake: Assuming the Burj Khalifa is state-of-the-art, wouldn't random gunshots, sudden pressure differentials on the 119th floor and in the server room on the 130th, and having someone free climbing on the outside of the building (to say nothing of a person falling from the building) maybe have triggered an alarm or two, and perhaps a couple of security guards might have come up to check things out? Benji didn't have control of the alarms until after Ethan got to the server room.
Other mistake: When Benji kills Wistrum, the bullet hits him square in the back, even though Benji shot him from the side.
Answer: Ethan called Bogdan, who would have been debriefed (and given a phone) by the IMF sweeper crew whose van they transfer him to. The henchman played by Andreas Wisniewski just works for whichever arms dealer will pay him, so Max and later The Fog. If you recognised him, you were probably supposed to think Max would be the contact, so it was just a bit of an easter egg and subtle gag by the filmmakers, but there has been speculation that Redgrave was supposed to reprise the role.
Sierra1 ★