Best crime movie character mistakes of all time

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See You Yesterday picture

Character mistake: Right at the beginning of the movie, introductory technobabble. "In this canister, there's a solution of protons. The canister is attached to a rotor circuit that generates the protons to the speed of light." I believe the science genius and creator of time travel mixed up the words "generate" and "accelerate" here. (00:00:50)

Sammo

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Serpico picture

Character mistake: When Frank Serpico is recording his phone call regarding being transferred, the guy, who says the precinct is clean as a houndstooth, calls him Mike.

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The Night Clerk picture

Character mistake: Bart is sitting on a bench outside the hotel. After Detective Espada talks to the Mercer hotel manager/owner, he goes to talk to Bart. Bart has blood on both hands and lower left sleeve. Detective Espada is supposed to be investigating a fresh murder case that puts Bart at the scene, but he does not confiscate Bart's bloody clothes, conduct a gun powder test on Bart's hands to check for residue, or take him to the police station for formal questioning. Espada did not follow police protocol. (00:17:36)

KeyZOid

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National Security picture

Character mistake: At the security guard graduation, the instructor opens a pouch of quarters and says to use that to call the cops when things get nasty. You don't need to put money in a pay phone to dial 911. (00:21:05)

Quantom X

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Orphan: First Kill picture

Character mistake: After Dimitri put Leena's wrist bands on for her (through the door slot), Leena said, "I want to do something nice for you; you can come in." Dimitri agreed, and Leena pulled up a chair to stand on (to be his height) and caress his face/ hair. When Leena bent in to kiss him, she banged his head against the wall several times, killing him. As a "Saarne Instituute" security member, Dimitri should know not to get sexually involved with or trust a patient, especially the most dangerous one. (00:10:29 - 00:11:29)

KeyZOid

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Queen & Slim picture

Character mistake: Queen is an attorney and should know how to conduct herself as a passenger in a car pulled over by police, yet she fails to behave in an acceptable way. Even though certain things may be permissible under certain circumstances, a lawyer should know exceptions and extenuating circumstances, but she apparently does not. She did not have the right to interfere with a police officer and "demand to know" or get out her cell phone to record if she was told to keep her hands where he could see them. (00:10:25)

KeyZOid

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Mr. Brooks picture Mr. Brooks mistake picture

Character mistake: When Mr. Brooks and Marshall hack into the police database and are looking at detective Tracy Atwood's financial records there is a screenshot of the computer screen showing some very terrible spelling.

BmunnY

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Deception picture

Character mistake: McQuarry enters the subway at the 103rd Street station on the 1. He is transferring to the 2/3 at Chambers Street when Bose approaches him. However, it makes no sense to transfer here. As someone who knows New York, McQuarry would transfer to the 2/3 at 96th Street to benefit from the express ride to Chambers. (01:03:05)

throcko

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Casino picture

Character mistake: When the high roller Ikachawa returns to The Tangiers, Rothstein said he's betting $1,000 instead of his usual $30,000, so when he won, it didn't feel like he had won $10,000 (10 $1,000 bets), but felt like he lost $90,000, alluding to the fact that betting 1/30th of his normal bets made him feel even though he was winning $1k a hand he was missing out on the other $29k, or losing that. At ten hands won, at $1k/hand, he really would have felt like he was losing $290,000, not $90,000 as Rothstein says.

Michael Prete

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The Virtuoso picture

Character mistake: During the planning stage, the Virtuoso said (narrating), "You have to hit a two-inch moving target on a car going 60-plus miles per hour from 50 yards away." He was watching the CEO drive past the window to where he parks in front of his business. The CEO was shown taking a sharp turn at the intersection and squealing his tires, but the location was inner-city with short blocks and traffic lights. Downtown busy streets with pedestrians do not allow (or enable) drivers to reach high speeds. (00:10:30)

KeyZOid

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Man on Fire picture

Character mistake: The mother is supposed to be American, but she speaks in her native Australian accent near the end when she says, "I don't think I can take anymore of this" upon finding out that Pita may be alive.

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Jack Reacher: Never Go Back picture

Character mistake: Reacher asks the MP Sgt who her "DI" was in "boot camp." The Army doesn't have Drill Instructors or boot camp but rather "Drill Sergeants and Basic Training." Call a drill sergeant a DI and you'll be doing push-ups, seen it happen.

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Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: How would he have known that it was deactivated? It wasn't even his mansion. He was drunk after all and focused on the girl.

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Die Hard: With a Vengeance picture

Character mistake: During the St. Ives riddle, Simon gives them 30 seconds to solve the riddle and call back. But it takes them 65 seconds to call, to which Simon says they're 10 seconds too late. And, after 42 seconds, McClane says they only have 10 seconds left.

Bishop73

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Nobody picture

Character mistake: When the neighbor is showing off his Challenger he states it is a 1972 4.9 liter. Dodge never made a 4.9L that year, only a 3.7L, 5.2L and 5.6L.

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The Sweeney picture

Character mistake: When Francis Allen is being interviewed by Reagan, Allen presents Reagan cell phone pictures of himself on a yacht to support his alibi. Allen says "the time and date are on the top of the screen, you saw that, didn't you Reagan?" and Reagan agrees. However the date is seen at the bottom of the screen, not the top.

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Raw Deal picture

Character mistake: When the undercover cop says, "Hi, when was the last time you had a good..." she doesn't identify herself as a police officer. (00:37:15)

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Black Widow picture

Character mistake: Theresa Russell identifies the rare coin as "Felice Baciocchi and her sister Elisa." Aside from the mispronunciation, Felice Baciocchi is a man.

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Hotel Artemis picture

Character mistake: At the beginning of the movie you can read the rules of the premises, in particular rule number 3 says; "No guns or any type of weapon permitted through the gates." However, the Wolf King's cronies dump their guns before the gate even when they were never supposed to be able to come in (so does Burke at the beginning, but he was trying to be admitted in). (00:07:15)

Sammo

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Batman picture

Character mistake: The newspaper that reveals the combination of products that activates the Joker's poison has at least two grammar mistakes on the front page. The word "deodorant's" should not have had an apostrophe, and the word odoreaters was spelled "odoureaters," which has the British spelling of the word odor (Gotham City is obviously in the United States, not the UK). (01:17:10)

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