A nameless member

15th Sep 2005

The Jackal (1997)

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.

Quantom X

24th Dec 2003

The Jackal (1997)

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)

27th Aug 2001

The Jackal (1997)

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.

Quantom X

27th Aug 2001

The Jackal (1997)

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)

27th Aug 2001

The Jackal (1997)

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)

17th Dec 2001

The Jackal (1997)

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)

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