Deliberate mistake: When the woman is attempting to escape from the elevator, it dislodges and falls down, so then the actress is facing the ground...but when her arm hits the floor, the floor itself bends. If you watch the DVD with the commentary on, the director points out that it was a break away floor in case the actress' head accidentally snapped forward, to avoid any injury. (00:08:00)
Deliberate mistake: When John and his sister Patty are watching the old videos, it shows John saying that he would pay for his niece's college education and the camera is showing them from the side. John says "And that's a promise from your uncle John." and the camera is in front of him showing his face. There is no way they could change camera angles like that in a home movie.
Deliberate mistake: When all the thumbs are at the wall saying "I'm the king of the globe" and "I'm a dentist" you cannot see their legs, so that saved some costume work.
Deliberate mistake: The entire time they spend in the trench, before they attack, Quinn has a white sheepskin jacket. It rains throughout the film yet with all the mud about you would think in about a day that this jacket would turn dark brown. It is still fairly white even when Quinn dies.
Deliberate mistake: In many scenes bullets are shown striking things and sparking (this is especially visible on the attack on Knockout Ned's house when a bullet strikes a chair and gives off a huge spark of light). In real life, only special bullets with incendiary materials (meant for starting fires) cause sparks, and this is only when they're fired against metallic objects. It is impossible that a bullet striking a chair would give off a spark.
Deliberate mistake: When the girls are shown at home at the beginning of the film they speak in their native tongue except when they talk to whites. Also at Moore River they get sometimes scolded for using that 'jabber language'. Therefore, it seems wrong that on their walk home they talk to each other only in English. (Though the director admits on the commentary that he felt this would be unrealistic, he decided the audience would connect with the girls if they speak English rather than reading subtitles.)
Deliberate mistake: After Doyle and Gavin agree to meet at the court (right before Gavin's second highway crash), there is a scene of a taxi driving on the left side of the road. This shot was obviously flipped, as everyone in the U.S. drives on the right-hand side of the road. (01:00:15)
Deliberate mistake: When asked about the effects of a gas attack on a village in Russia, the president is told that the effects were similar to end stage cerebral palsy. One major problem - cerebral palsy is a chronic condition, not acute. The condition itself is not fatal.
Deliberate mistake: When Mr. Roboto is offering Austin a mushroom, the subtitles lead Austin to think Mr. Roboto is asking him to eat some shit, until Foxy reveals more of the subtitles to say "Please eat some shitake mushrooms." The correct spelling for this kind of mushroom is "shiitake." They had to cheat on the spelling in order to make the joke work.
Deliberate mistake: During the scene where Richard is playing croquet on the lawn in front of the Delta Iota Kappa house, the letters of the fraternity are visible on the front of the house. The Greek letter for "Delta" should be a triangle yet it is the letter "D" in the shot. This is presumably to follow the "DIK" joke that would not be as obvious if written in correct Greek letters.
Deliberate mistake: During the fight at the Unity Day Festival, at one point Goblin is confronted by some cops and beats them up. Watch closely... you can tell that the first and second shots are just different takes of the same stunt from a different camera angle. Goblin's movies are exactly the same (except slightly faster in the second shot), and you can also tell it's the exact same two cops he's hitting. They tried to artificially lengthen the scene by showing two slightly different takes of the stunt.
Deliberate mistake: In multiple shots, Stitch's ear notches move higher in places or vanish completely.
Deliberate mistake: Although much of Auto Focus revolves around the 1960s hit television series "Hogan's Heroes," the producers of this independent film could not work out a licensing agreement with CBS regarding the famous "Hogan's Heroes" theme music. As a result, the familiar "Hogan's Heroes" theme music is entirely absent from Auto Focus, replaced with contrived theme music that isn't even remotely similar to the original.
Deliberate mistake: Early in the movie someone fires an RPG, and, when he does, they show him comically being flung back through the air by some kind of supposed recoil effect. RPGs are rockets shooting out of tubes with the blast going backwards, so the holder of the tube themselves experiences no recoil.