Character mistake: The actor who played FBI agent Ross is Lennie James, who is an English actor. When they are searching for the girl in the parking garage of her building, he orders the SWAT team and other agents to search everywhere, under the cars and to "check the boots." He says this twice. Boot is the British term for trunk. He should be telling them to check the trunks of the cars, not the boots.
Character mistake: During the interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Alan Krumwiede incorrectly describes what an R naught of 2 means. He claims on Day 1 there were 2 people infected, then 4, then 16, then 256... This is raising each number to the 2nd power (squaring each number.) But we learned earlier in the movie from Dr. Erin Mears that the R naught indicates the number of people who will become infected by 1 infected person. So to calculate the spread of the disease, each # of infected should be multiplied by 2, not squared. It should go Day 1 = 2, Day 2 = 4, Day 3 = 8, Day 4 = 16, Day 5 = 32, etc. (01:06:35)
Character mistake: When the EMTs are resuscitating Dr. Harris, they use a defibrillator despite their being on a wet metal dock. Not only is this highly dangerous to absolutely everyone present, it would be completely ineffective at restarting his heart as the water and the metal would dissipate the electric current too much for it to do any good. At the very least, they would have stabilized his spine then moved him to a dry surface before beginning defibrillation. (00:08:30 - 00:09:10)
Suggested correction: External defibrillators are self grounded and so can be safely used on wet or metal surfaces. https://danboater.org/travel-health-and-safety/are-aeds-safe-to-use-in-wet-environments.html.
AEDs are indeed safe to use in wet areas - but in the film, it is not an AED that is used. AEDs are automated, and not operated by humans, so as to reduce risk. Your link explicitly states the rescuer must not have direct contact with the body: they just apply the pads, then move back. In the film, it is shown in detail that the medic applies the paddles and then operates them while still in contact with the body. The mistake stands: it's a traditional defibrillator, thus incorrectly used.
Character mistake: When they deliver Xmas presents to Denmark it's already too late - Denmark has the presents on the 24th, early in the evening.
Character mistake: Nicole Johnson, a criminology professor, after enumerating a number of facets of jurisprudence, states that following these tenets is, "The only way the criminal justice system can ever be perfect." As a professor, she is surely aware that, despite following the pronouncements in the referenced book, criminal justice is far from perfect.
Character mistake: In the scene where Ned talks to Janet after getting out of prison, she says "Jared this is what happens..." His name is Ned, not Jared. (00:08:00)
Character mistake: In the scene when Jennifer Aniston is driving in the parking lot to take her kids to meet Brooklyn Decker, she is driving a Chevrolet. At the end of the movie, when she's confessing to Nicole Kidman, she states that she drives a Honda.
Character mistake: Alan Alda says that his personal security code is the street address that he lived on at Steinway Boulevard when he was a kid growing up in Astoria, NY. The name of the street in Astoria is Steinway Street. (00:19:50)
Character mistake: When the American hands over the wills to Ian Fleming he calls him Lieutenant Commander, but when Fleming turns up at the camp he has gold braid on his cap - only commanders and above wear gold braid. Also they kept calling the RAF guy Flight Sargent but he didn't have a crown above his stripes.
Character mistake: 2 men are watching the cameras with Bishop rolling away from the exploding truck. One man says to watch camera 2, but they are actually showing 1 in the upper left corner.
Character mistake: Dr. Erskine says he lives in Queens at 73rd Street and Utopia Parkway. Actually, 73rd Street is well to the west of Utopia Parkway (both run north-south). Erskine must have meant 73rd Avenue, which does cross Utopia Parkway.
Character mistake: In the Italian restaurant, Eddie is speaking jibberish, not Italian at all.
Suggested correction: He is speaking Italian.
I am Italian. He is speaking gibberish.
Character mistake: One of the latin chefs says in Spanish "Tengo un novia", when the correct way of saying it is "Tengo UNA novia". The way he said it sounds completely absurd.
Character mistake: Throughout the movie, the way characters pronounce Tori's last name changes. It switches back and forth from "Fredricking" and "Frederking".
Character mistake: Gail reads right through Katie's poor excuse about crotcheting, and says she won't go to the ball "after what you pulled today with Guy." She did not do it (well she didn't do anything, but 'supposedly did') today, but yesterday. (00:31:00)
Character mistake: A detective (Briggs?) told Sonny, " that I was stupid enough to believe your dark fantasy NINE-ELEVEN call." [emphasis added] An American law enforcement officer, in particular, should know and use "nine-one-one" (911) when referring to the nationwide emergency telephone number. "Nine-eleven" (written 9/11 and NOT 911) is used to refer to the September eleventh (9/11/01) terrorist attacks in the U.S. (01:15:57)
Character mistake: When the posse is heading out in the morning, one guy says that it's heading north and they start riding in the direction he's pointing. However it's supposed to be first thing in the morning, and you can see the shadows of the horses cast to the left of screen while they are riding towards the camera. The sun rises in the east, which would be right of screen with the shadows cast towards the west. Since they are riding towards camera, this puts them heading south.
Character mistake: Nicolas Cage looks up the Bing results for Alan Marsh, the journalist he accidentally kind of murdered. The URL of his personal blog, hosted by the newspaper he works for, spells "blog" wrong. (00:55:25)
Character mistake: In the pivotal scene where Bolly and Jonah are explaining the need to replace their departing players in the aggregate, Jonah adds up 3 players on base percentage and divides by three. You can't get an accurate average for a rate stat by that means unless all the players had the same number of plate appearances, which they did not. The answer given by Jonah Hill is 14 points low. When the older scout questions it, Beane scolds him that he "didn't carry the one." Same mistake is in the book.
Character mistake: Near the end of the movie, Dr. Bennett told Nathan that he could live with her and be able to finish the school year (without having to transfer). Assuming Nathan was a minor (under 18 years of age), Dr. Bennett did not have the legal authority to simply take custody of Nathan. There are proper court procedures to follow; a judge would have to agree and sign a court order declaring Dr. Bennett as Nathan's (temporary or permanent) legal guardian.