Sudden Death

Plot hole: It seems that an awful lot of time and effort was taken in planning this caper, what with all the bombs planted throughout the arena and all, but the terrorist were pulling this during game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. What if the series ended at game six in Chicago?

Plot hole: When the game goes into Sudden Death, the teams are seen taking a brief timeout at the benches. The only problem here is: during the Stanley Cup playoffs, whenever a game heads into OT, the ice has to be resurfaced and both teams are sent to the dressing room. If this had happened, the Penguins would certainly have noticed that their dressing room was bullet-riddled from the fight that occurred earlier and would have - at the very least - figured something was up.

Continuity mistake: Jean Claude Van Damme has just killed a terrorist in the hallway of the sports complex. He drags his body into an elevator to hide the body. The "terrorist" is far too tall and lifts his head out of the way to fit into the elevator. Can be seen just as the doors are closing. Very easy to spot.

Factual error: When Van Damme goes on the ice to play Brad Tolliver he punches the player with number 22, which actually was the number of Christian Ruuttu, but the player who got hit is called Dupinsky afterward.

Continuity mistake: At one point in the game, the Pens' goalie, Tolliver, is thrown out. But later in the game, the subsequent shots of the Pens' goalie we see is still Tolliver.

Plot hole: Assuming for the moment that the terrorists got the money they wanted...then what? With the building surrounded they wouldn't have been able to escape without being seen by the authorities, the vice president and everyone else know what the main bad guy looks like, and the helicopter they had couldn't carry them all. So how would they get away with it?

Plot hole: Luc Robitaille scores the game-tying goal with no time left on the clock, 0:00.00, sending the game into 'sudden death' overtime, hence the title of the film. The only problem is you cannot score a goal in an NHL game with no time left on the clock. It's impossible. Even if there were .5 seconds left, both teams would have to have an ensuing faceoff for the rest of the time to expire.

Continuity mistake: When Van Damme is talking to his son, telling him to stay in his seat and look after his sister for a while, in the background you can see the action on the ice is by the far left goal, yet in the next shot showing Van Damme walking up the stairs, you can see in the background the action has instantaneously switched to the other end of the ice.

Continuity mistake: In the last game of the Cup finals Luc Robitalle is on a break away. There is an aerial shot of the ice, showing clearly that Robitalle is the only one on the offensive half of the ice...a true break away if there every was one! Then, there is an ice-level shot, and somehow there are two defencemen that Robitalle has to beat to score.

Plot hole: It's hard to believe that not one single civilian at the game (other than the main characters) is aware of what is going on outside. With hundreds of cops and paramedics surrounding the building and the explosions that happen during the game someone would have figured out something was up long before the end of the film.

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Plot hole: It's the seventh and final game of the Stanley Cup in a sold out arena with the Vice President, the mayor of the city and other important officials in attendance...so where is all the security?

Deliberate mistake: The way the helicopter fell into the stadium at the end is impossible. Since the dead guy still held the control stick back, the rotor blades would still be pointed backwards making the helicopter fall even more back. Since there wasn't any controlled steering, it would spin around wildly. Not even a stunt pilot could maneuver a helicopter like that not to mention a dead body.

Character mistake: You can see many of the "terrified" people smiling when running through the arena hallways.

Plot hole: Darren knew that the terrorists would kill everyone with the bombs if they didn't get the money they wanted, problem is he was never told when the bombs would go off so when the third period expires with the sudden death goal, he had no reason to suspect that's when the bombs would go off.

Continuity mistake: When Van Damme disarms the first bomb, he only cuts two wires. There are three wires visible (its black, and is visible to the left of the yellowish wire). In the next scene, the last wire he didn't cut is gone.

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Plot hole: Two helicopters approach the arena and one gets shot down. A huge explosion in the middle of a large city would be seen by thousands of people and police would respond, but law enforcement do not come and investigate.

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Continuity mistake: In order to purposely receive a 'game misconduct' penalty, Van Damme hits a Chicago Blackhawk. Immediately after the hit, a second Blackhawk is seen quickly skating to his checked team mate's aid. However in the very next shot showing Van Damme standing over the downed Blackhawk, the second Blackhawk never appears.

Revealing mistake: There are many shots in the supposedly sold out arena showing quite a lot of empty seats or obvious prop standouts of people in the seats.

Factual error: As fast as Lucky Luc was speeding down the ice for the sudden death point, he would have reached the goal long before the 14 seconds were over.

Character mistake: At one point in the movie, the commentators mention that the last time the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup was in 1960. The Blackhawks last won it in 1961.

Hallmark: Have you had any contact with the aggressors?
Darren McCord: I killed two. Is that contact?

More quotes from Sudden Death

Trivia: At the time of the movie's release, nearly all the players from the Pitsburgh Penguins depicted in the film (Luc Robitaille, Ulf Samelsson, Greg Hawgood, etc), were no longer with the Penguins. They were all either traded, went free agent or released.

More trivia for Sudden Death

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