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Agent Toby Lee Shavers: You know, if we're gonna be working together, you should work on your partner skills just a lil' bit? Like if you want something try "Please", "May I borrow?"
Darius Stone: Please, may I borrow the binoculars... before I kick your teeth in?
Agent Toby Lee Shavers: OK see, that's a start. (00:33:15)

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Factual error: Talking about Darius Stone's military record, Agent Meadows mentions in passing that he holds the Navy record for highest dive at 250 feet. That wouldn't be the Navy record, that would be the world record, higher than the current one by over 50 feet. It's fine for a movie to make up some facts, obviously, but here they downplay what appears to be a next to superhuman ability. It's like having the main character running the 100 meters dash in 8 seconds and call it a "navy record." (00:25:50)

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Revealing mistake: As Lo bids farewell to Darius, you can get a good look at the back of his neck when he catches the keys with his not-so-injured-anymore hand. When he drives away the camera zooms on an XXX tattoo that simply wasn't there. (01:34:25)

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Continuity mistake: When the President at the end holds the medal for the 'unknown soldier', the medal at Scott Speedman's neck is nice and straight in the close-up, but curls up above the star in the shot when the Pres quotes Tupac. (01:32:55)

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Continuity mistake: When Darius pushes the buttons turning the lights off in the cart where Deckert is holding the President hostage, he begins shutting down the lights behind them, but in the reaction shot those lights are going out later. Moreso, before the camera cuts away from the switches, we see three lights turn off at once, one being below Stone's fingers. (01:28:40)

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Factual error: The train conductor tells the bad guy that "air brakes are blown, can't slow us down anymore." But air brakes in modern trains are fail-safe; if they are 'blown', they lose pressure and therefore activate automatically. (01:27:50)

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Revealing mistake: When Cobbs slams Darius against the door after dodging the knife he pulled out, Ice Cube is replaced by a stuntman. (01:26:40)

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Stupidity: The bad guy's henchman has a plan to stop XXX from reaching the wagon with the President. He hides in the kitchen compartment, which is in a separate area that XXX has to decide to look up and get inside of for no reason (guess that looking at Ice Cube he guessed he'd be going for a snack at some point), leaves his automatic weapon on the floor and just waits there in a ceiling compartment with a knife. If he just shot him through the wall or the door, I guess it would have been too easy. (01:26:20)

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Factual error: The main character manages to save the Prez thanks to a blatantly absurd trick; he gets (just like that, on the fly, at 160 mp/h bumping everywhere like in a pinball) his car on the railroad tracks, and rides them completely consuming the tyres, and going just on rims he actually attains a better peak velocity. Assuming the Cobra has exactly the same width as the train, this is not how cars and their wheels work. (01:24:20)

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Revealing mistake: As the bullet train is chased by the helicopters in formation, the helicopters fly as obvious CGI constructs. (01:23:35)

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Plot hole: Gibbons is presumed dead and is an NSA officer with no documents or anything, but in the space of a couple minutes from furious shootouts he's the man who orders everyone around, summoning Black Hawks and all sorts of military forces just like that - and supposedly the whole army in the vicinity is hostile and loyal to the bad guys, even. (01:21:40)

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Continuity mistake: When the bad guys open the doors to the bullet train track using President James Sanford's hand, look at the corridor double door. When XXX arrives, he finds the same open doors with door stops that weren't there a moment before. (01:21:00 - 01:21:30)

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Continuity mistake: By the power of schizophrenic montage, X and Steele turn around hearing the arrival of Charlie with Gibbons, are side to side, and in the next shot they are on opposite sides of the huge hall and blindside them. (01:19:10)

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Character mistake: John Gleeson Connolly appears in the final credits as Lt. Alabama 'Bama' Cobb, but during the movie he's always called "Sergeant." When it's XXX to call him like that, adding that he was too dumb to make Captain, it's logical, as he'd basically address him as the rank they had when they served together and belittles him for not jumping in ranks all that much, but even the General addresses him as such in the Capitol Hill shootout. (01:18:30)

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Plot hole: The last part of the movie focuses entirely on what will happen to the President, but as per the villain's plan (wrong and incomplete, but it's another issue) he needed to kill also the VP and the others before him in the succession. The bad guy already lost 20 minutes before the end of the movie but the movie refuses to tell us the obvious and it's simply swept under the rug or forgotten. (01:16:20)

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Plot hole: General George Deckert orders his men to kill the President "Get rid of him", but once this execution, that would make perfect sense in the context of his plan, is interrupted by the cannon shot he spends all the rest of the movie until the very end to drag the President with him for no reason. The longer he keeps him hostage, the more difficult for him it is to cover the story up in any way. (01:18:00)

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Continuity mistake: When the President realises who's behind the coup, he walks towards him.asking "Are you doing this?" His hair is just fine and very Presidential, but when a cut later he asks "Are you familiar with the word 'treason'?" his hair is messy on his forehead. (01:15:10)

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Continuity mistake: Darius and his posse start their assault on the renegades. They drive on the sidewalk and are about to crash into the road block. In the POV shot there's just a couple of soldiers in their way, who move rapidly out of the way. The next shot shows the same spot but on top of 2 soldiers who still have to move out, there's also a construction worker with a hard hat and more people. (01:13:00)

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Revealing mistake: When XXX and his friends open the cheese truck, look into it and let Toby work his magic, you can see in the distance above the black SUV the cars blocking the road to allow filming. (01:08:30)

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Factual error: From the title itself it should be clear that the movie is set when the President is giving the State of the Union address, which is in the middle of winter (end of Jan, approx). The movie has been shot between June and October, and it shows, since everywhere in Virginia the trees and lawns are in full green and people wear for the most part light clothes.

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