The Pelican Brief

The Pelican Brief (1993)

15 mistakes - chronological order

(4 votes)

Factual error: When the President is in the hospital getting his physical, after the first female naval officer (Lt.) leaves, the President salutes the the second female officer, a Commander, and she then salutes back. There are two things wrong with this. 1) The junior grade officer ALWAYS salutes the senior officer first and the President, as Commander in Chief, is the highest military officer. He would never salute first. 2) The salute the Commander gives is absurd. It is some strange windmill wave over her head thing. No naval officer would EVER salute so sloppy or bizarre and especially not to the President of the United States. (00:31:15)

Luna Negra

Continuity mistake: After Darby has emptied the safe deposit box, she stuffs the large envelope and a videotape in her large handbag. Upon fleeing the car, she does not take her purse, just the affidavit, no tape. Later they watch the tape. (00:41:32)

Continuity mistake: Darby calls a man who is alone in a hotel room (the one who gets shot soon thereafter). When the man hangs up the phone, his shower starts running almost immediately, which means he would have to have been teleported to the bathroom to accomplish this so quickly. (00:57:00)

Jon Nicholas

The Pelican Brief mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the hotel scene where Darby calls Gavin to give him the instructions to meet her the next day, he eats one of the chocolates on his pillow and throws it down. They show a close up of the chocolates. After Khamel murders Gavin, he walks to the bed, pulls the recording device and eats one of the chocolates. They are now in a different spot on the bed. (00:59:55 - 01:00:25)

Luna Negra

The Pelican Brief mistake picture

Continuity mistake: In the hotel scene where Gavin is murdered, after speaking w/Darby, he eats one of the chocolates on his pillow next to the night stand. He leaves the chocolates and the Westin card on the pillow/bed. Then when they show a shot of Gavin sitting on the bed brushing his teeth while Khamel hides in the closet waiting to murder him, the chocolates and the card are gone. Then, after Khamel murders Gavin, the chocolates and the card reappear back on the pillow as Khamel walks over and eats one. (00:59:55)

Luna Negra

Plot hole: Upon learning from one of Edward Linney's fellow classmates that he is staying at Parklane hospital, Gray and Darby head right over to see if he can identify "Garcia" from the photo. At the hospital, Gray distracts the receptionist while Darby sneaks in. She runs upstairs and goes straight to Edward's room. How did she know to go upstairs and which room Edward was in? The friend never tells Gray, Edward's home phone was disconnected, and at the hospital, Darby doesn't speak with Gray, he just waves her in. (01:38:25)

Luna Negra

Factual error: The car bomb meant to kill Gray and Darby is connected to the ignition switch. The ignition switch has done its job (switched on) when the starter motor starts turning, and we hear the starter motor turning when Gray turns the key. The bomb would have exploded at that point - it doesn't matter at all that the engine hadn't started yet when Darby stops Gray from continuing. (01:55:50)

ReRyRo

Continuity mistake: After getting the documents from the safety deposit box, Gray and Darby are chased around the inside of a parking garage. As they hide down on a lower level, the female assassin spots them in the reflection on the back of a side view mirror on a car. In the direct shot, Gray is the corner and Darby on the outside. However, in the reflection, it shows Darby in the corner and Gray on the outside. (01:59:00)

Luna Negra

Continuity mistake: As Gray and Darby are being chased in the garage, after getting the documents from the safety deposit box, Darby is gripping the envelope folded around the videotape, like a taco. This switches back and forth between holding it with the open side facing her and gripping it with the closed side facing her, and thus the videotape can be seen from the front shot. As she is running around the corner, it changes from the view as she comes up on the corner to the following shot of her running around the corner. It actually flips back and forth several times over the chase sequence in the garage. (01:59:30)

Luna Negra

Continuity mistake: When Julia's character leaves the Westin Hotel she rides a street car to the Riverwalk. I know we probably like to see all of a city's landmarks but, the Riverwalk is one building away from the Westin Hotel, you could skip there.

Continuity mistake: When Grantham is riding in a car with his editor, he tells him in confidence the room number of the hotel where he is hiding out. It's on the 8th floor. In the next shot Grantham is entering his hotel room and discovers someone has broken in. It's room 217. The intruder then leaps off the balcony and escapes, something that would kill him if the room was on the 8th floor.

Continuity mistake: In one scene you can briefly see that Julia Roberts wears a wedding ring, but her character is single and wears no rings at all. [At the time she's pretending to be the wife of a dead man - she needs to get info from the bank].

Plot hole: Darby goes to great pains to get out of the country, to where no one will know where she is but Grantham. But upon reaching her "secret" destination, a van pulls up to the plane and a man gets out and hands them an envelope with a copy of the front page of the Washington Hearld with their breaking story and both their names as by-lines. That couldn't happen unless other people besides Grantham and the pilots knew her destination.

Sheri Hartman

Deliberate mistake: Gray's rental car just happens to be the one car out of the hundreds in the parking garage that the bad guy chasing Gray and Darby crashes into, setting off the bomb he had placed.

ReRyRo

Plot hole: Darby and Gray are surprised to learn at the end that the guy who tried to kill her in New Orleans was Khamel. Given that Khamel was (a) a wanted terrorist, (b) the prime suspect in the judges' assassinations, (c) shot in a public area in front of many witnesses and (d) holding a recently used handgun when he died, this would have been breaking front page news along with his name on newspapers and news shows. Ridiculous to think they had to find out from Voyles who he was.

Gavin Jackson

Smith Keen: Didn't they also say they knew of no connection with the assassination?
Gray Grantham: Yes. But what else are they gonna say?

More quotes from The Pelican Brief

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